Talk:List of topics characterized as pseudoscience/Archive 13

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Tweak inclusion criteria: no pseudoskeptical sources

The current inclusion criteria obviously specifies mainstream scientific skeptical sources of criticism, not criticisms from fringe and pseudoskeptical sources. Because that isn't apparent to everyone, and the situation above (inclusion of pseudoskeptical criticisms of psychiatry) exploits apparently unclear language, we need to tighten up the wording to make that clear.

This is NOT the "list of topics characterized as pseudoscience by pseudoskeptical groups and individuals." The term "pseudoscience" is a mainstream scientific term, and when usurped by pushers of pseudoscience, their position is a pseudoskeptical position, not a truly skeptical one.

Here is the current wording from the first two paragraphs:

This is a list of topics characterized as pseudoscience by organizations within the international scientific community, by notable skeptical organizations, or by notable academics or researchers. Besides explicitly using the word "pseudoscience", some may also have used synonyms that help to explain why they consider a topic to be pseudoscientific. The existence of such expressed opinions suffices for inclusion in this list, and therefore inclusion does not necessarily indicate that any given entry is in fact pseudoscience. Opposing points of view exist and are presented in the main article for each subject listed below.

Also included are important concepts associated with the main entries, and concepts that, while notable and self-evidently pseudoscientific, have not elicited commentary from mainstream scientific bodies or skeptical organizations. Notable parodies of pseudoscientific concepts are also included.

Criticisms from mainstream sources and POV are obviously what we are asking for, so I suggest the following tweak:

This is a list of topics characterized as pseudoscience by organizations within the international scientific community, by notable skeptical organizations, or by notable mainstream academics or researchers. Criticisms from promoters of pseudoscience, IOW pseudoskeptical sources, do not qualify for inclusion here. Besides explicitly using the word "pseudoscience", some may also have used synonyms that help to explain why they consider a topic to be pseudoscientific. The existence of such expressed opinions suffices for inclusion in this list, and therefore inclusion does not necessarily indicate that any given entry is in fact pseudoscience. Opposing points of view exist and are presented in the main article for each subject listed below.

Also included are important concepts associated with the main entries, and concepts that, while notable and self-evidently pseudoscientific, have not elicited commentary from mainstream scientific bodies or skeptical organizations. Notable parodies of pseudoscientific concepts are also included.

I have added "mainstream" and a sentence against the use of pseudoskeptical sources, both underlined. The pseudoskeptical positions are available and even elaborated on in depth, and we point to them in the last sentence of the first paragraph ("Opposing points of view exist....."), so there is no hiding that they exist, but they are way off-topic here. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:15, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe that bringing up "pseudoskeptic" in the inclusion criteria is a good idea. The solution to the problem of finding out what is and what isn't pseudoscience is that we don't even try, but have formal inclusion criteria based on reliable sources. If we then have to discuss whether or not our sources are pseudosceptic this isn't a solution any more. --Hans Adler (talk) 10:58, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

My response to this is kind of repetitive of what I stated above so I will just copy-and-paste:

If we are going to limit the inclusionary criteria of this list article to just mainstream sources, then the entire list article will stand as a WP:NPOV violation and probably should be nominated for deletion as such. However, if this list article also recognizes significant points of view from notable organizations, researchers, and academic outside of the mainstream, then the list becomes compliant with NPOV.

IOW, if this list article creates an inclusion criteria which is even more in violation of WP:NPOV than how it stands now using the suggested wording above, than it would in effect disallow significant viewpoints from outside the mainstream. This is precisely what NPOV strives to protect against. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

What you are proposing in effect makes it impossible to collect the existence of a POV from V & RS in one place. No list would be allowed that documented such a POV, yet we have lots of lists here. It's a matter of staying on-topic. It would also create enormous bloat, making the list far too large. The wikilinks are directly to where the opposing POV are found! I suggest we use a little common sense here. It shouldn't be necessary to struggle to include mainstream, documented reality, because attempts to include pseudoscientific/fringe POV criticisms stand in the way. They are off-topic here and can be found in their respective articles, where they are on-topic. -- Fyslee (talk) 03:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not proposing anything other than we do something novel in this article and adhere to WP:NPOV. You are the one proposing something to the contrary - that we only include the mainstream POV in this article. "Enormous bloat" is not a good enough reason to exclude other significant viewpoints nor to ignore NPOV. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 09:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for presenting other POV, IOW criticisms of psychiatry, which is what you were interested in, wasn't it? My objection is not to the inclusion of such criticisms, only to the sourcing, as it would violate the meanings of the words in our title and inclusion criteria. Keep the criticisms, just find better sources. Now if you are a promoter of Scientology, then we're dealing with another matter more akin to dealing with terrorist attacks and threats, since they are not only a problem here at Wikipedia, they are dangerous in real life. Are they watching this article? Do editors here need to fear them in real life if we oppose use of them as sources? What about if we still support them as sources elsewhere on Wikipedia? They are allowable on their own articles, that's for sure.

Let me repeat again, I'm all for presenting other POV, IOW criticisms of psychiatry, just with better refs from truly scientific skeptical sources. I'm sure they exist. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

You are presenting inconsistent arguments, Fyslee. Here, you say that you are all for presenting other POV. Yet yesterday in the thread just about you said this list describes one POV. Which way do you want it? Just proceeding the above statement where you say twice that you are "all for presenting other POV", you made this uncanny edit where in your ES you state that "Pseudoscience is a term belonging to science and scientific skeptics". This seems like incongruant reason. On one hand you say you want to include other POVs, but on the other hand you say you want to limit the POV to just that of science and scientific skeptics. On one hand you say you welcome criticisms from skeptical sources, but in the next breath you say that we should only cite from scientific skeptical sources. Consider this: Limiting the sources to just those which represent one POV is the same thing as limiting the POV of the content of this article. There are forms of skeptical thinking that differ from your own. You may wish to call these forms "pseudoskeptical" but be aware that adherents to those forms may (and do) view your form in the same way.

I am utterly confused by your likening support of Scientology to terrorist attacks. It seems like a weird thing to say, but perhaps I am not understanding your point or the relevance of the statement to this discussion. You are writing oddly and abstractly about some mysterious "they" who we should be afraid of. That sounds like conspiracy theory talk, though I highly doubt that was your intent.

Bottomline, this article as it stands, is a list of things characterized as pseudoscience by notable sources. For better or worse, agree with them or disagree with them, CCHR is a notable organization, and Thomas Szasz, Fred Baughman, Julian Whitaker, and Mary Ann Block each all notable academics/researchers. That is the inclusion criteria which you personally wrote for this article. I don't follow Scientology. I don't know much about any of these four academic/researchers. And I personally think that psychiatry is a scientific field. But this article isn't about my POV or your POV. This is about significant and verifiable POVs. And the plain fact is that this organization and people are all significant enough to merit their own Wikipedia articles, and this organixation and people have characterized psychiatry as pseudoscience. That really should be the end of the discussion here.

Remember, once we start limiting the inclusion criteria of the sources asserting a characterization to just those from one POV, then this article will stand as a monumental WP:NPOV violation. Either we allow all significant point of views (as NPOV clearly states) or we allow no point of views and just scrap this article. Personally, I still think we'd be better off if we simply made this a definitive List of pseudosciences - not just things that have been characterized as pseudosciences by this researcher or that organization - but rather a comprehensive list of pseudosciences with the inclusion criteria being exactly what NPOV lays out for us in WP:PSCI. If we do that, if we follow PSCI, then there cannot be a NPOV violation, for PSCI is NPOV. Honestly, I think we are making this more difficult than it has be. PSCI lays it out clearly and succinctly and it has been vetted by the community. Maybe that's another discussion. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 09:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

This is about one POV, and that POV is the scientific and scientific skeptic POV. When pushers of pseudoscience use the term "pseudoscience", they are misusing it, and you are proposing that we include misuses of the term as reliable content here. That makes no sense. That's a big POINT violation in an attempt to disrupt, sabotage, and finally delete this list. Your history on this matter speaks for itself and is tiring.

This is NOT the "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience by pseudoskeptical groups and individuals. Those types of characterizations are being made and sourced in the respective articles on each of the subjects listed here. They are not hidden or denied expression here at Wikipedia. NPOV is complied with. Even the most nonsensical groups and individuals who are blacklisted get their say in their own articles, where they can be used as sources about themselves, but not elsewhere. We just need to stay on topic here and prevent sabotage of this list. -- Fyslee (talk) 16:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not seeing a huge problem here, I think most would agree that Scientology is not the best source of science (barring the fiction) but the point in this case is moot as the scientists that they quote are notable in their own right, I don't think that we absolutely depend on CCHR websites for information on what those people have said. Hans Adler is quite right that we should leave the can of worms closed, rely on RS and RS/N to inform us where we can find out what is considered pseudo-scientific. It is also true that we have WP:PSCI but using that would pare the list down considerably as the example of 'psychoanalysis' shows. As PSCI is more or less an 'internal' document we may not necessarily be limited to its interpretations of what constitutes 'pseudoscience' but if we formulate our own rules for this list we should make them absolutely clear. I don't mind either way and I think that RS/N is the most appropriate route, this should stop us short of violating OR. Unomi (talk) 17:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I certainly agree that Scientology is not the best source of science (or even a good source, for that matter). But this article is a list not dependent on science, but rather dependent of characterization -> hence opinions -> hence points of view. CCHR is a reliable source of their own point of view, and they have characterized psychiatry as a pseudoscience. CCHR is a notable organization with a significant POV. I would be happy to bring this to NOR/N, but we have to be clear that this is not a list dependent on science, but rather a list dependent on points of view Agreed? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

[od] You are focusing only on the title and ignoring the inclusion criteria. You can read it again:

• "This is a list of topics characterized as pseudoscience by organizations within the international scientific community, by notable skeptical organizations, or by notable academics or researchers. Besides explicitly using the word "pseudoscience", some may also have used synonyms that help to explain why they consider a topic to be pseudoscientific. The existence of such expressed opinions suffices for inclusion in this list, and therefore inclusion does not necessarily indicate that any given entry is in fact pseudoscience. Opposing points of view exist and are presented in the main article for each subject listed below."

Are you serious when you twice state:

• "this article is a list not dependent on science"

• "this is not a list dependent on science"

Do you really understand what you are saying? Are you proposing that a proper understanding of pseudoscience is possessed by pseudoscientists, and not by those who have invented the term, and who are informed by the scientific POV? Incredible! The very concept and term "pseudoscience" is a scientific concept, and when pushers of pseudoscience use the word in their attacks on mainstream science, they are misusing it, and their "skepticism" is actually pseudoskepticism. You just don't get it and are now claiming that:

• "But this article is a list not dependent on science, but rather dependent of characterization -> hence opinions -> hence points of view. CCHR is a reliable source of their own point of view, and they have characterized psychiatry as a pseudoscience."

I have no objection to adding certain aspects of psychiatry to the list, if we can find mainstream sources that label them "pseudoscience", and I'm sure such sources exist, but the CoS is a totally unreliable source for such a list, since they are pushers of pseudoscience themselves, the pseudoreligion that they are. No, better sources need to be used.

You don't understand that the only legitimate users of the term "pseudoscience" are those representing mainstream science, and those informed by that position, such as scientific skeptics. That's why the inclusion criteria names them. You have now tried several times to change the inclusion criteria to exclude the wikilink to "scientific skepticism", and only use "skeptics", thus enabling you to make POINT violations and sabotage the article with any type of generic "skepticism", even those uttered by pseudoscientists. I'm so tired of this disruption.

Since you seem to be interpreting "or by notable academics or researchers" as anyone, including those who have the opposite POV (IOW who don't understand the topic of this article) as the previously mentioned "by organizations within the international scientific community, by notable skeptical organizations,", then you are laboring under a delusion. If you can't understand that those academics and researchers are expected to be of the same POV as the mainstream international scientific community, and not some fringe scientists who have forgotten their calling, then we need to make that clear in the lead by adding "notable mainstream academics or researchers." -- Fyslee (talk) 05:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I am focused on the title of the article because it is the title of the article and thus defines what the article should be about. Presently, the title doesn't completely match what this article is about based on the recent change to the inclusion criteria which Fyslee has penned. The title should actually be something to the effect of "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience only by mainstream scientific sources or scientific skeptical organizations". Skepticism is not just a scientific concept, and there's more to it than just scientific skepticism; hence the two articles. Pseudoscience is a definitive scientific label at times, but it can and is used unscientifically in a perjorative manner. The misuse of the label is not only perpetrated by pseudoscientists but also by pseudoskeptics. Given the title of this article, we cannot be expected to sift through the sources using the label and determine which sources are using the term properly and which ones are not. All we are required to do is to find out which sources are significant and which ones are not. It would be different is this was an article entitled "List of pseudosciences", because that would mean that per PSCI we could only present mainstream scientific sources where a general scientific consensus shows that a topic is definitively a pseudoscience. The list would then essentially be an expanded version of Category:Pseudoscience. But "List of pseudosciences" is not what we have here. What we have here is a "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience". "Characterized" means that this article is not just about listing definitive pseudosciences but rather it is open to include topics which have just been called pseudoscience by some significant source. As long as that is what we are working with then we should not and cannot - per NPOV - exclude significant POVs just because we don't agree with what those sources are saying or what those sources stand for. And that's the bottomline. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 07:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Two questions for everyone

Two questions for everyone:

1. Is this a list of pseudosciences or is it a list of things characterized as pseudosciences?
2. What is the difference between a list of pseudosciences and a list of topics characterized as pseudosciences?

This will help clarify any issues that we have here. Thanks. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:59, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Not really, as this is just a diversion. This is about your insistence on using a poor source, rather than whether psychiatry should be included or not. I think it deserves inclusion, AND that it can be done using reliable sources, rather than fringe pseudoskeptical sources. Using good sources will make the entry seem serious, while using unreliable sources will make it look like a POINT violation. -- Fyslee (talk) 22:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Please just answer the two very direct questions rather than casting unfounded accusations. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

We settled all this when we established the inclusion criteria and also when we changed the title to match the inclusion criteria we already had. Just read the lead and the previous discussions. As this is a diversion from the present dispute, I'll refrain from finding the obvious answers for you. You can do it yourself. Hint: the answers are right in front of you and aren't complicated. -- Fyslee (talk) 04:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay it's plain that you are reluctant/afraid to answer my simple questions, Fyslee. These questions are for everyone so let's hear from others. Thanks. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 04:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. That would be easy. I just know how you play the system and will twist anything anyone says to drag this out into some wikilawyering scheme of yours that distracts from the fact that your nonsense is getting exposed. You don't understand the difference between science and pseudoscience, which explains why you are always defending various quackeries and pseudosciences here. We've seen this before from you. When one tactic doesn't work, you switch tracks, and when that doesn't work, you will subtly do the same again, and you have been known to do this for up to six months on just one issue! No, none of that now. Just stick to the subject at hand, which is your attempt to sabotage this list by diluting the inclusion criteria. THAT'S the issue here. As long as the word "chiropractic" is in this list, you will seek to destroy it. Tough luck! Consensus is against you. -- Fyslee (talk) 05:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay. It seems that you are still reluctant/fearful of answering my questions and are now relying on bad faith accusations to try and avoid answering them. As you well know, this sort of petulant argumentation - attacking the researcher rather than looking at the research, lambasting the commentator instead of examining the comment, putting down the questioner rather than answering the the question - these are the hallmarks and hiding places of pseudoskeptics. I would hope that as a self-proclaimed skeptic you would be more open to rational discussions. Then again, perhaps you are not the skeptic you think you are. Maybe you are not open to considering that the opinions you hold dearly may be wrong and you are therefore not open to the ideas and suggestions of others. As a fellow skeptic, I ask to you to take journey with me and simply answer the questions I have asked. You say they are simple and obvious, then please indulge us with your simple and obvious answers. Let's explore all possibilities through reasoned and rational discussion. This starts with you assuming much better faith in me than you are showing now because frankly, at this point, your behavior borders on personal attacks. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 07:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Honestly I think the list would be best served by dropping the inclusion of 'notable skeptics' / 'skeptical organizations'. Currently we are in a situation where we have to decide who the 'true' skeptics are. I don't think that we are able to do that in a consistent manner, lets leave science to the scientists OR allow the opinions of all. Are James Randi or the people behind quackwatch more notable skeptics? In any sense of the phrase I think more people would recognize Tom Cruise in that role. I don't think we should let 'scientific consensus' be represented by a magician or a group that JAMA apparently had to apologize for publishing articles from. From what I can see about Barrett he has started more failed lawsuits than I have fingers, in one of which he seemed to think that trying to sue someone for false advertising meant that the defendant had to provide proof of efficacy, and in the same trial admitted that they had done zero research of their own. These leaps of faith and gaps in logic are exactly what characterizes pseudoscience. It is not quite up there with blowing up souls with atom bombs in volcanoes but it does show a serious disconnect between what they suppose reality is and .. you know, what reality really is(tm). Lets keep it real real simple. Scientists and researchers have the ability to argue for what is and isn't pseudoscience. Everyone else just gets an opinion. Unomi (talk) 06:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That's your opinion, but this has been discussed thoroughly and such opinions are especially important when dealing with fringe subjects, since "pure" scientists (lab only) ignore such subjects as unworthy of their attentions. OTOH, scientists, researchers, and doctors who are concerned with ethics and consumer protection get involved as activists (debunkers and quackbusters), and they are the ones who understand the legal and ethical issues best. No, we've already decided that issue a long time ago. BTW, you don't know very much about Barrett, and what you think you know is pretty tainted by the misinformation widely spread about him. He's not perfect, but take a look at the references at Quackwatch and Stephen Barrett, and you'll see he's highly regarded in mainstream circles and is in very good company. Please read those articles thoroughly before making more uninformed criticisms. If you have any questions about him and QW, just ask on my talk page. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• I am not really sure I understand what you are saying here, Quackwatch has been to RS/N a number of times and each time it has been judged non-RS, I link to an RS/N discussion where J/AMA are very nearly considered non RS as well and one of the cited reasons is the fact that it has published a QuackWatch authored article which it in turn had to *apologize* for. The lawsuits are available through google once you click through pages of QW self-promotion, and they do not paint a flattering picture of their grasp of 'legal issues' or 'ethics'. Yet somehow this is just an artifact of 'misinformation'. The bottomline is that it is a selfpublished, non peer-reviewed, partisan website largely consisting of the writings of one man. By rights these kinds of claims deserve MEDRS if it were not for 'characterized as' which gives some room to maneuver. Does none of this give you pause? This is supposed to be a serious encyclopedia. You said that serious researchers don't waste time on pseudoscience, I think there is a grain in truth in that, however you were able to find seemingly good sources regarding AK, should QW actually be based in science that would mean that they have references to 'actual research' which can be used to support their *opinion*. Unomi (talk) 11:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a matter best discussed elsewhere. You have a number of misunderstandings of the actual discussions related to using Quackwatch as a source here, and the Amendment (vindication) to the ArbCom clarified that. In short, its suitability should be judged on a case by case basis, just as with many other sources. It is a good and very notable source of skeptical opinion, but not always a good source for scientific nitty gritty. QW does use extensive referencing to scientific sources in most of its articles. Many of its articles can themselves be used as among the most notable examples of scientific skeptical opinion, while the primary sources it uses to come to those conclusions of opinion can be used to source the scientific nitty gritty that satisfies MEDRS. -- Fyslee (talk) 14:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is what I propose as a way forward: Everyone gets to air their views/opinion, properly attributed in-text to those that espoused them. Then it lives up to the list title. These characterizations are then, wherever possible, backed up by research that supports that characterization. This allows us to continue pretty much 'business as usual' and encourages editors to find genuine research that backs up or contradicts these views. In the end the reader should win out. Unomi (talk) 06:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That sounds fine and fair to me, and certainly aligned with NPOV. Yes, according to NPOV and given the current title of this article, "everyone gets to air their views/opinion, properly attributed in-text to those that espoused them". Everyone includes any and all significant scientists and pseudoscientists, skeptics and pseudoskeptics, debunkers and religious organizations. Everyone, providing that their POV is verifiable and significant. This is the only way to meet NPOV given the titular parameters of this article. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 07:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Poor sources should not be used...The section on Psychology is a good example, where that section and related ones are being held hostage by a group of self-proclaimed saviors. The citation, cite web|url=http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/at.html |title=Be Wary of Attachment Therapy |accessdate=2007-11-17 |last=Maloney |first=Shannon-Bridget does not meet your criteria...it is not a reputable scientific source. is is really self-published and not peer-reviewed and is a "partisan website." The entire section is subtle in its bias and it is not NPOV!!!!!! As a mom of a child who is being successfully treated with an approach that one of that bunch called "voodoo," in his e-mail to me, I can tell you they are not at all NPOV and have some ax to grind.PAMom (talk) 11:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You don't understand NPOV or our sourcing policies very well. Wikipedia cites opinions all the time. If you have a burden about this matter, take it to the Quackwatch talk page, and if you have a specific reference to find objectionable and can't get it settled there, take it to the RS noticeboard. -- Fyslee (talk) 14:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Yes Wikipedia does cite opinions, and it does so by directly attributing those opinions to those that make them, the problem is that in this list the opinions are written in such a way that they seem to constitute fact not the personal opinions or statements made by groups. It is not a subtle distinction. Unomi (talk) 05:56, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Precisely. Hence the need for a {{bias}} tag until this issue can be resolved. See the thread below... -- Levine2112 ^discuss 06:22, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Unomi, I would have thought that a word in the title ("characterized") and the qualifier (below) in the LEAD would have made that clear, but you apparently haven't noticed it:

• "...and therefore inclusion does not necessarily indicate that any given entry is in fact pseudoscience."

Therefore there shouldn't be a problem, but the other matter of attribution is something I've always backed up when it's not taken to an extreme. We could possibly use some NPOVing of some statements. If you find any examples, please copy them here in a separate thread and we can certainly find a more neutral version, as long as it doesn't violate the intent of the authors. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

'Characterized' did not escape me. What did escape me was how the policies regarding NPOV, Notability and appropriate attribution got rewritten. Just because the list includes 'characterized' doesn't mean it gets to circumvent wikipedia policy. QuackWatch has been to RS/N multiple times and each time it has been found a RS on their opinion nothing more. Trying to use QW in a fashion that is not directly and inline attributed to them is just plain wrong. If you feel that RS/N is wrong in their assessment, take it up with them. It doesn't matter if you make the lead state it may not be this or that, the text is still subject to rules of proper attribution. I don't have to copy anything anywhere, it should be glaringly obvious to you when you read through the page. Above I outlined a way which might make it more clear how we are able to present the information, I will copy it here for clarity:

• Everyone gets to air their views/opinion, properly attributed in-text to those that espoused them. Then it lives up to the list title. These characterizations are then, wherever possible, backed up by research that supports or undermines that characterization. This allows us to continue pretty much 'business as usual' and encourages editors to find genuine research that backs up or contradicts these views. In the end the reader should win out.

Trying to write up a list of 'anointed pseudoscience outers' is unwieldy and causes needless friction. We should let the references speak for themselves and trust the reader. Unomi (talk) 07:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I said once, I said it a hundred times:

1. This article lists topics which have been characterized as pseudosciences by some notable source.
2. These characterizations should be presented as opinions of their respective sources, especially since inclusion does not necessarily indicate that any given entry is in fact pseudoscience.
3. This is a list of opinions. Opinions are viewpoints.
4. Viewpoints fall under the jurisdiction of NPOV.
5. NPOV states that all articles must represent fairly all significant viewpoints.
6. Some editors want this article to not represent certain significant viewpoints at all - those sources which they feel are not qualified to reliably characterize something as pseudoscience.
7. These editors are causing this article to violate NPOV.

Below I have spelled out this rationale and have twice attempted to include a {{bias}} tag on this article. I was reverted both times by editors who didn't bother to engage in the discussion below. If we are going to continue with "notable sources who have made a characterization" as the inclusion criteria then we have to be prepared to allow the opinions of all kinds of notable sources. This goes both ways. If we are including partisan, attack site sources such as Quackwatch, then we should be able to include sources such as CoS. If we are including pseudoscientific sources such as CoS, then we should be able to include sources such as Quackwatch. This is how we represent fairly all significant views, and that is how we satisfy NPOV. The other options on the table is to drop "characterized" from the title and turn this into a definitive list of pseudosciences, not all that dissimilar from Category:Pseudoscience except we would be able to provide brief explanations for each entry (just as we do now). -- Levine2112 ^discuss 08:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I concur. Unomi (talk) 08:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd appreciate your input below on whether or not a {{bias}} is warranted on this article. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 08:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Characterized. The differences were hashed out at great length in the polite discussion not so long ago leading up to the name change.
2. This list relies on sources that are reliable to make the distinction. Yes, this means we need to make a judgment call for every source and entry, but a statement from the Association of Non-Lorentz Invariant Scientists is will never be reliable to be cited for statements on General Relativity. WP:RS states that sources must be generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand, and WP:V that [t]he appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Can we please get back to trying to write a good list, now? - Eldereft (cont.) 00:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

1. This is a polite discussion of the state of the article now. It would be polite to answer my two questions at the top of this thread.
2. The inclusion criteria makes no mention of "reliable to make the distinction". The subject at hand is not pseuodscience, but rather the "characterization of pseudoscience". Any source is reliable at verifying its own characterizations (its own opinion). The question is only whether or not the sources are notable. So if the Association of Non-Lorentz Invariant Scientists asserts that General Relativity is pseudoscientific, then we should include it in this list (if ANLIS was truly a notable source). Why? Because this is not a list of pseudosciences. This is just a list of that characterization asserted by notable sources. What should it matter is ANLIS was completely wrong in their characterization? We have several "wrong" characterizations already included in this article; that is, there are several topics included which are not pseudosciences but are included in this list because some notable source has made such a characterization. And this is the problem. A group of editors here wants to "make a judgment call for every source and entry" but the problem is that their judgment is incredibly biased - only allowing certain notable source's characterizations while disallowing others just as notable. Hence the need for an NPOV tag. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:44, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Gentlemen, we are peeking Through the Looking-Glass, and getting a glimpse down the rabbit hole.... Levine2112's twisted logic is strikingly close to Humpty Dumpty's....

Rarely have I seen such an extreme case of wikilawyering as in the comment above by Levine2112. He refuses to use a bit of common sense. Common sense (making "judgment calls") is expected to be used in all our editing, including the application of policies. Such a legalistic and rigid interpretation can only lead to absurdities, with a list that will give a totally confusing picture to readers because it will include the confounding misuses of the scientific term "pseudoscience" by pseudoskeptics who are misusing it for their own misguided purposes.

• `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' Levine2112 is proposing that we accept Humpty Dumpty's and his understandings of the word. Well, that won't do because Humpty Dumpty is not a good source.

The fact is that the word "pseudoscience" has a proper meaning, but they mean something else. Why should we include misuses of the term that twist the term to mean something other than what it properly means? This resembles the typical tricks and word games played by CoS and creationists, where they use standard and common words to mean something else. Such a practice violates the very title of the list by introducing nonstandard and nonaccepted definitions of the word "pseudoscience".

Eldereft has quoted two policies: WP:RS states that sources must be generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand, and WP:V that [t]he appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Those important phrases obviously are requesting editors to make common sense judgment calls each time they edit. Especially the first one requires that sources that misuse information and twist words cannot be considered "trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand."

No pseudoskeptical sources can be considered "trustworthy" or "authoritive" on the subjects of science or pseudoscience, since they don't understand them and they reinterpret the words to mean whatever they wish them to mean. Humpty Dumpty is not a good source, and it takes the scientific mindset to make the proper judgment calls. Only they can tell the difference.

Levine2112 has already admitted that Scientology is not a good source for the subject of pseudoscience and psychiatry, but rigidly argues, based on a stiff and legalistic interpretation of selected and isolated parts of the inclusion criteria taken out of their obvious context, that they should still be used as a source, and that other unnamed sources should be used in the future based on his interpretation, no matter how ridiculous their POV, just as long as they make a "characterization". This violates WP:RS. Humpty Dumpty is not a good source. Only the named scientific based sources are reliable for subjects related to science, and since "pseudoscience" is a pejorative judgment call made from the scientific POV by scientists, it is only they that can use it correctly and understand it properly. Their arrow is shot from their home court and has a target outside of science. One cannot properly reverse the direction of flight and let pseudoscientists label science "pseudoscience". That's Humpty Dumpty logic.

Why are we stuck here in this debate? Because of a basic truth -- believers in pseudoscience -- like Levine2112 (especially if they are confused about the related issues) -- are incapable of recognizing that they are believers in pseudoscience, and they will thus often be acting in a generic "skeptical" mode, believing that they are acting as "scientific skeptics", and that their opposers are the pseudoscientists and the pseudoskeptics. (How many times has he called scientific skeptics "pseudoskeptics"? Quite a few times!) What more can I say? It seems futile discussing this with him since this is the mindset we are dealing with. We have seen it now for several years with occasional evidences of some learning, but just as surely a steadfast reliance on old beliefs that die hard.

It's time for this disruptive discussion to stop. I suggest Levine2112 take a break from this topic entirely, or that he be topic banned. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No, Fyslee. Please try to address the issues raised by Levine in an intellectually honest (that is NPOV and not POV) way instead of calling for a topic ban. This has been a very interesting discussion and I think that Levine has raised important issues. Regardless of the Scientology issue, there are other well-known critiques of psychiatry (and psychoanalysis). MaxPont (talk) 07:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have indeed pointed out the bizarre flaws in his extreme form of wikilawyering. On the other matter, I have stated before that I am not opposed to the inclusion of psychiatry/psychotherapy in the list, and that I believe we can find mainstream criticisms from non-pseudoscientists. Those "well-known critiques" should be used. You seem to be aware of them, so please use them. We need them, not some fringe sources. Fringe sources are already used in the main articles where they belong. -- Fyslee (talk) 13:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Fully agree with and support Fyslee and his analysis of what is going on here, and the analysis of the editing of those involved. Eldereft's points and Fyslee's addition are worth repeating again: WP:RS states that sources must be generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand, and WP:V that [t]he appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Those important phrases obviously are requesting editors to make common sense judgement calls each time they edit. Especially the first one requires that sources that misuse information and twist words cannot be considered "trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." Verbal chat 09:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Fyslee and Verbal. (I have already commented elsewhere on these topics) --Enric Naval (talk) 04:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that some of the sources, such as QW is NOT considered an RS for anything but their opinion, as much as you might believe that they are 'reliable for making the distinction' it is magical thinking to think that this is automatically so. Where you see 'analysis' in Levines Fyslees writing, I see 'ad hominem', strawman tactics, special pleading and confirmation bias, to name a few. I don't care to exclude QW or Randi or CSICOP or anyone, but the in-text attribution of opinion which this is a list of, must happen. WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NPOV are core principles, and they cannot just be pushed aside because you want to right great wrongs. If you believe that you can exempt an article from these core principles by writing a disclaimer in the lead I suggest you go find community consensus. Unomi (talk) 10:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Unomi, you still don't understand QW's status as a RS here, but yes, it's opinions are very, very, very notable, and are considered valid in these types of situations, both here at Wikipedia and in the real world. Of course common sense should be used on a case by case basis, just like for the other sources. Also I have already stated I'm for attribution, so I'm not sure why you are complaining. Is anyone proposing otherwise? Statements by the NSF should/could be attributed just as much as QW, American Cancer Society, or other sources. Such attribution cannot detract from the statement, but only elevate its status in the minds of reasonable people, while those believers in various quackeries and pseudosciences who already hate QW will find its use irritating and will continue to deprecate it as a source. Such people are often incapable of learning in these matters anyway, being stuck in the rabbit hole. They can edit here for years and continue to refuse to change their beliefs and accept the mainstream position as true, preferring to continue to defend their fringe beliefs. Now why do I defend the inclusion of some of the worst pseudoscientific nonsense at Wikipedia? Because NPOV requires it. It just needs to be presented properly as the fringe nonsense that it is, not presented as if it were true. -- Fyslee (talk) 13:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I went to WP:NPOVN to bitch rant about this matter here. For Unomi this is a new unexplored matter, but for other people this is the nth time that the same old topic is brought forward after being defeated multiple times, which each time the consensus getting clearer. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

And now it's at the reliable rources noticeboard WP:RSN#usage of Quackwatch as RS in medical quackery. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The answer to the question far above is that "characterised as PS” equals, “attributed by someone as PS”. The implication is that the party making this attribution should be made explicit. For every entry it should be explicit from where the attibution comes. In the article, not hidden in the reference section. MaxPont (talk) 06:42, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any such "implication", but I do support the use of more in-line attribution. There's even a section about the subject which I have started. I haven't seen any objections to using more attribution yet. -- Fyslee (talk) 14:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Twisted use of the term pseudoskeptical

Fyslee twists the definition of this term[1]. It is devoloped in a context where it is used to describe "skeptics" ( Debunkers ) that pretend have very high scientific standards but have a hidden aganda. If Fyslee is serious about rejecting pseudoskeptical sources, half the entries should be removed from this list. MaxPont (talk) 06:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Note that the link is a redirect to Marcello Truzzi, we have no article on "pseudoskepticism". Also note that sceptic does not mean or equal debunker, this is again a common fringe position. Truzzi used the term to mean a specific thing, but I would say Fyslee's use is that of "sceptical" with the pseudo modifier, and is not at all a misuse or confusing in the context. I don't think that even if we were to adopt Truzzi's definition that we could find 3rd party RS that describe any of our sources as pseudosceptical, so for us to do so would be OR. However, we can find many reliable 3rd party sources calling organisations such as Scientology and the Homoeopathic Society unreliable. Verbal chat 07:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

.... yes, but not pseudoskeptical. (The article about pseudoskepticism was merged into the Truzzi article.)MaxPont (talk) 08:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

They claim to be sceptical, but they aren't (pseudo). They fit the description I gave and Fyslee's correct description. As no one has claimed in the article that they are pseudosceptical by either definition, then this whole section is pointless and continuing to argue this would appear disruptive. Verbal chat 09:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm obviously well-aware of Truzzi's use of the term, but it is now often used in an even broader application, which is still in harmony with Truzzi's use. Verbal has correctly noted that I'm using "sceptical" with the pseudo modifier, IOW a very literal meaning of the word. Robert Todd Carroll has used it in the sense I use it. The situation is similar to the use of the term "true believer", which originally had a specific application, but has become very commonly used as a pejorative for fringe believers, a use that is still in harmony with the original use. -- Fyslee (talk) 14:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, does that imply that you also accept the usage of the term psuedoskeptical in the way it was originally defined by the academic that coined the concept? As a way to express a debunking attitude that goes beyond a sound skepticism and a true scientific mindset of not being prejudiced. MaxPont (talk) 06:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

NPOV tag

I am going to tag this entire article with POV issues tag. The problem as I see it stems from that this article is NOT a list of definitive pseudosciences, but rather a list of topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience by some notable source. While some of the entries on this list are definitive pseudosciences, some of the entries are not. To truly be labelled a pseudoscience, as per WP:PSCI, the topic must be an Obvious pseudoscience or Generally considered pseudoscience. However, this list does not attempt to truly label any topic as a pseudoscience, but rather present some notable group's or person's characterization and therefore sidesteps around WP:PSCI. I don't really love that we are sidestepping aroung a piece of WP:NPOV, but that is what we are working with at the moment.

So, given that this article is not a list of definitive pseudosciences but rather just a list of topics that have been characterized as such, to exist and still satisfy WP:NPOV, this article must represent "fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources". Currently, this article violates this fundemental principle of Wikipedia because it is purposefully excluding certain significant views on what characterizes a pseudoscience. The recently changed inclusion criteria in the lead limits the viewpoints to just those of "organizations within the international scientific community, by notable skeptical organizations, or by notable academics or researchers", thus excluding a great deal of significant views that are not necessarily part of this limiting criteria. (Note that the word "skeptical" links not to skepticism but rather to scientific skepticism.) While per WP:PSCI only a general consensus in the scientific community can truly label a topic as pseudoscience, this article includes entries of topics which have only been characterized as a pseudoscience by one researcher or by one skeptical organization and not the general scientific community. So, why are we including the characterizations made by these researchers and organizations, but excluding - and moreover disallowing - the characterizations made by other researchers and organizations.

Recent attempts to include significant views of certain notable organizations, notable academics and notable researchers have been summarily eliminated and denied from this article. Why? Because some editors feel that these organizations and researchers are in themselves pseuodskeptical and/or pseudoscientific, thus they are ill-equipped to label something a pseudoscience and therefore their views on what they characterize to be a pseudoscience should not be included in this list. This perpetrates the inherent bias of this article's inclusion criteria which allows for characterizations made by certain notable organizations and people, but disallows characterizations made by other organizations and people just as notable.

Remember, this is not a list of definitive pseudosciences, but rather a list of characterizations.

In the thread above, I asked two questions which I still feel will serve as a basis to guide this conversation. These quesions are as follows:

1. Is this article a "list of pseudosciences" or is it a "list of topics characterized as pseudosciences"?
2. What is the difference between a "list of pseudosciences" and a "list of topics characterized as pseudosciences"?

If anyone would like to begin by answering these questions, I think that would make an excellent jumping off point to discuss my inclusion of the NPOV article tagging. Further, if anyone would like to go ahead and address my substantive points above about what I view as this article's inherent bias, I think this article would benefit from that as well. Thanks. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I support the NPOV tag for the above reasons, the inclusion criteria breaks NPOV 70.71.22.45 (talk) 23:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I welcome the NPOV tag, until the opinions of all notable persons/organizations are allowed to be included and all opinions/statements are properly attributed in-text. Unomi (talk) 08:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a discussion that has already recently been had. The title is fine, and the criteria are set out in the article. The NPOV tag has not been justified. This seems to show that if you give pro-fringe editors an inch, then they are simply encourage to take more. This is already a "pro-fringe" compromise. Verbal chat 11:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Verbal I have no idea what you are getting at here, the discussion as I understand it has nothing to do with fringe anything, it has to do with proper attribution of 'opinion'. Many of the entries of the list already do a proper job of attributing the views to sources, but we need to ensure that they all follow policy. The NPOV tag is justified until that happens and the inclusion criteria is understood and accepted by all. Unomi (talk) 14:53, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. And Verbal, regardless if this discussion has happened before - which it hasn't - it would have taken place before the change to the title and inclusion criteria. Remember, editor's opinions are not immutable and perhaps it will have taken implentation of this version of this list article for editors to recognize its pitfalls. Several editors agree that there is an NPOV issue with this article. Will an edit which installs the {{bias}} tag be reverted immediately again with out the benefit of adequate discussion or can we safely re-install such a tag at this time? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:22, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the tag should stay until this is settled.MaxPont (talk) 06:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course it should. That's the whole purpose of tags: to flag articles so that fresh input can be obtained. Consensus is usually sufficient to remove the tag, but consensus isn't necessary to put it there in the first place; indeed, it's usually a lack of consensus that leads editors to tag an article. It is uncollaborative to remove a tag without discussion [2] and for invalid reasons (like "no consensus to include") [3].

If some editors don't think there are NPOV problems, then the venue for expressing that is to use this talk page, not to remove the tag. The same logic applies for, e.g, article RfC's or noticeboard postings: we don't just delete them because we disagree with them. Obviously, a tag need not be kept if it's clearly frivolous, but that's not the case here.

While I think the tag should remain until agreement is reached, I personally don't share Levine2112's concerns about NPOV in this case. The list's title and inclusion criteria make it clear that this is NOT solely a list of WP:PSCI's "obvious pseudosciences" and "generally considered pseudosciences". We can and do include "questionable science", as well as "alternative theoretical formulations", and even majority views, if sourced properly. In a nutshell, I'd propose this: We can include any topic that has been called PS by a reliable source (whether or not said source is "right" or reflects a majority scientific view). As long as a sourced view is significant enough to be mentioned in a topic's article, it should suffice here. (Tiny minority views such as "Darwinism is a pseudoscience" would be mentioned neither here nor in Darwinism.) As long as we annotate items so as to mention balancing views per WP:WEIGHT and WP:ASF, we're within NPOV. regards, Middle 8 (talk) 17:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Given the nature and history of this article, it would have been nice if PoV-concerns had been mooted and potentially resolved here first, but water over the bridge. Given the same, it would be especially nice if the concerns raised included specific and appropriate sources and views not currently represented in proper proportion. Please propose textual edits so the discussion can center around concrete improvements to the associated article without distraction from nebulous prolixity. As it is my opinion that there are no pending major issues with this article, I would like to see the {{bias}} tag removed; I remain, of course, perfectly content to wait a few days for emerging talkpage consensus. - Eldereft (cont.) 17:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I too think that the list is actually pretty good. If there are specific items that need discussion, then tag THEM, and let's discuss them. Lacking that, let's get rid of the tag and return to normal editing and discussion of specific edits. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If I could tag one thing specifically, it would be the lead, especially the inclusion criteria. However, since the lead effectively dictates the article as a whole, it is much more appropriate to tag the entire article. I am perplexed that you two (Eldereft and Fyslee) are saying that the tag should be removed, when all efforts to install such a tag have been summarily reverted without the benefit of a proper discussion. Do you at least agree that it is inappropriate to remove the {{bias}} tag without proper consenus? It seems like we are spending too much time discussing what is and isn't proper in terms of tagging, rather than discussing the heart of this issue. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 03:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The tag(s) seem to have been removed (probably correctly) because the reasons for adding the tag are no applicable to the tag, or are unarticulated (or poorly articulated) or discussed and removed - much like many other articles in WP in fact. Just because people disagree with the article doesn't mean it needs a tag. Shot info (talk) 05:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Since the dispute over the LEAD and inclusion criteria is now a moot point (yes, it has been discussed to death and Levine2112's comments aren't making sense), only maintained by Levine2112's wikilawyering, moving on to the tag is the logical next step. Levine2112 can choose to remain in the rabbit hole and view things Through the Looking-Glass, but we don't have to stay with him or encourage him by replying to his comments. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Flat earth

Without an inline source, I can't find who has called the flat earth society pseudoscience; although the wikipedia page seems to take it seriously, a quick trip to their website reveals otherwise... CheesyBiscuit (talk) 12:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Pleas add a RS to that effect, otherwise your edit will probably be undone. I have seen several news articles that treat these people as honestly holding this belief. Some may, some may not, but I think we need a strong source saying the organisation is itself a parody. Verbal chat 13:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Flat_Earth_Society#Flat_Earth_Society_today It seems that the website you mention is probably a 'spoof' on the original Flat Earth Society.

Either Johnson et al had a very well developed sense of irony and dead-pan delivery or they really meant it. I especially like the quote ' its easy to see how it would fool the untrained eye' re satellite photos of earth. Unomi (talk) 13:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

It may well belong in both sections, one for the true believers, and one for the spoofers. -- Fyslee (talk) 13:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

It appears that Johnson, the creator and leader of the original organization until his death in 2000, really believed in the flat earth theory, so it wouldn't be a parody. I moved it under astronomy, expanded a bit, and added this BBC source "Do they really think the earth is flat?" and History of medicine

(the only parody would be the non-notable website for which we only have one self-published website, without any source I would at most make a short mention in the entry about the original org) --Enric Naval (talk) 13:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Grudgingly accept, based on those sources. I still don't believe they actually thought that, I'm sure it's a parody, but I'll leave it alone! CheesyBiscuit (talk) 13:14, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Attribution

Let's see some examples of how more attribution will work. Will those proposing to use more attribution please copy some examples here and show how it will work in practice? Then we can discuss and tweak them and possibly use them in the list. I'm very interested in seeing progress in this matter. -- Fyslee (talk) 13:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I would say that this shows appropriate attribution:

• Biological psychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. Dr. Colin A. Ross and Dr. Alvin Pam argue that 'the legitimacy and cultural authority granted to an objective and value-free science is undeserved by biologic psychiatry' and that 'the valid notion of investigating constitutional determinants of psychological disorders has been coopted by a biomedical reductionist ideology.' Such sentiments and conflicting results of scientific research have spawned the Biopsychiatry controversy and ADHD controversy.

So does this :

• Innate Intelligence is a form of putative energy, the flow of which is considered by some Chiropractors to be responsible for patient health. Chiropractic historian Joseph C. Keating, Jr., PhD. stated: "So long as we propound the 'One cause, one cure' rhetoric of Innate, we should expect to be met by ridicule from the wider health science community. Chiropractors can’t have it both ways. Our theories cannot be both dogmatically held vitalistic constructs and be scientific at the same time. The purposiveness, consciousness and rigidity of the Palmers’ Innate should be rejected."

and this :

• Vitalism According to Williams, "today, vitalism is one of the ideas that form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems that claim that illnesses are caused by a disturbance or imbalance of the body's vital force." "Vitalists claim to be scientific, but in fact they reject the scientific method with its basic postulates of cause and effect and of provability. They often regard subjective experience to be more valid than objective material reality."

Unomi (talk) 21:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

That sure looks good to me. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

For style reasons I'd prefer:

• Vitalism is, according to Williams, "one of the..."

or something of this form, which keeps the list style consistent. Verbal chat 15:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I see that the article for vitalism does not have a one-liner definition.

• Vitalism is a doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining. According to the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, "today, vitalism is one of the ideas that form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems that claim that illnesses are caused by a disturbance or imbalance of the body's vital force." "Vitalists claim to be scientific, but in fact they reject the scientific method with its basic postulates of cause and effect and of provability. They often regard subjective experience to be more valid than objective material reality."

I believe that this is a good format, include the one-liner followed by the characterization we are after. What say ye? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unomi (talk • contribs) 15:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks very nice. Good job! -- Fyslee (talk) 15:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggested change of first heading

Our first heading is quite long, and against our MOS, it contains most of the title of the article:

• Topics which have been characterized as pseudoscientific

I suggest we shorten it to "Topics". What think ye? -- Fyslee (talk) 02:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If I don't get some discussion and objections, I'm going to move ahead with this change. Please respond. -- Fyslee (talk) 14:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

::I am not clear on why you think that is a good idea. Do you want to move away from the list format? Shorter it is not.

• Topics which have been characterized as pseudoscientific
• List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

Completely misread that, sorry. I am fine with the change. Unomi (talk) 15:31, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Not ideal either, but better, and I can't think of a better way to solve the problem. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it's not ideal. It's almost too short ;-) How about "List of topics"? -- Fyslee (talk) 15:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Or we could change Astronomy and space sciences, Earth and Earth sciences, &c. to first level headings, and make a new == covering Idiosyncratic ideas, Previously disputed unusual natural phenomena, and Parody pseudoscience. Just merging the Topics text up to the lead and promoting its subheadings would also work, as I am not sure what heading would be appropriate; and Idiosyncratic ideas should probably be sorted and merged up, anyway. Failing that, renaming that heading to Topics is good. - Eldereft (cont.) 15:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like an intriguingly nice way to simplify the levels we're using. How about doing it, and if it doesn't work it can be reverted back. -- Fyslee (talk) 16:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Done; I opted for the simple path. I think I am fine with it, but if we do not like having the last three headings on the same level as the meat of the list, anyone feel free to revert or come up with a heading for them. The descriptive text under the Topics which have been characterized as pseudoscientific seemed entirely redundant with the new lead text, so I did not merge anything up. - Eldereft (cont.) 21:27, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Unomi (talk) 21:37, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Psychiatry

I added the entry after finding a skeptical organization citing several researchers who are of the opinion that psychiatry is a pseudoscience. The entry is short for now, but can be expanded to include which elements these organizations and indivuals find to be pseudoscientific. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:02, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Per BOLD, Revert, Discuss, I have moved the section here because this needs discussion, tweaking, and better sourcing before inclusion. I hope we can work out a consensus version that will be acceptable to most everybody:

• Psychiatry is a medical specialty devoted to the treatment, study and prevention of mental disorders.

First of all, let me make it very clear that I absolutely commend Levine2112 for making this move. I'm pretty sure we can find some mainstream sources that label certain aspects of psychiatry as pseudoscience. I will elaborate on my concerns. Give me a few minutes. -- Fyslee (talk) 01:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

To quote Middle 8 from his talk page: "there probably is an argument that sources could be found describing the Freudian model of the mind as, at least in some contexts, pseudoscientific."

There was also some sympathy expressed by Eldereft there that "the psych stuff is worth a look... at some point; no rush."

I responded: "Indeed. There are probably some refs that can be used. The situation is that it qualifies as Questionable science, and because "some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized." Our current inclusion criteria would definitely allow sourced mention, especially since it is not us who are characterizing, but the sources. Who knows, at some point in time psychoanalysis may become a historical artifact that will easily fall into the "Generally considered pseudoscience" or "Obvious pseudoscience" class, and we'll then be justified in adding PS category tags to the articles! It's all a matter of how the mainstream changes its views on things, and on how the V & RS document that change. I suspect it may take some time...."

To which Middle 8 replied: "Agree... it will definitely take time. "Generic" counseling and caring bedside manner seem obvious; Freud's ideas, not so much so."

Now that's basically my position at the present time, keeping in mind that personal opinions are not what determines content here, but on talk pages we do benefit from exploring the issues involved and explaining why we do or do not support the inclusion or formatting of certain matters.

My concerns are NOT about the inclusion of this subject, but about the sourcing in this case. We need better sourcing. More coming.... -- Fyslee (talk) 01:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a valid item on the list as per the inclusion criteria. I think for the most part that the criticism against Psychiatry is actually against 'bio chemical' psychiatry or Biopsychiatry. We have the quote from CSICOP above re Medicating Children diagnosed with adhd. We also have studies that show that adhd medication offers no benefit over behavior management and counseling after 36 months[4]. Broader there are studies that show that antidepressants have only limited benefit over placebo[5], [6]. Unomi (talk) 01:31, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, now we just need good sources that actually call some aspects of psychiatry "pseudoscience", with some of those aspects you mention probably being some of the reasons they do so. -- Fyslee (talk) 01:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

We need better sourcing

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights fails as a RS for this matter, as it is a Scientology front group, IOW a pseudoskeptical group pushing pseudoscientific ideas. The very essence of what is involved in the proper understanding of pseudoscience and skepticism are being violated here.

When pseudoscientists are considered "skeptical", then we are in the land of pseudoskepticism. When believers in "pseudoscience" (= fake science) show "skepticism" of mainstream positions and science, they are often engaging in pseudoskepticism (= fake skepticism). That's what is understood by the terms, and when Scientology and other fringe groups and individuals criticize mainstream positions, they can't be trusted, and should definitely not be used as sources here. That would be a total twisting of the idea behind this list. It must not become a "list of topics characterized as pseudoscience by pseudoskeptical groups and individuals". That is not what the inclusion criteria specify, and since this is what's happening here, we need to strengthen the inclusion criteria so it doesn't happen again.

That doesn't mean that even Scientology might not have some legitimate criticims, but (1) they just can't be trusted on this matter, and (2) they don't qualify as a source according to our inclusion criteria. If they have any legitimate criticisms, then it should be possible to find them in mainstream sources, not fringe sources. I'm sure we can find some mainstream criticisms of certain aspects of psychiatry from truly skeptical sources. Let's try to find them. -- Fyslee (talk) 01:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that CCHR fails as an RS for this particular article. The newly rewritten intro - This is a list of topics characterized as pseudoscience by organizations within the international scientific community, by notable skepticalorganizations, or by notable academics or researchers... - makes no mention of the organizations or people being only those with "mainstream" points of view. The bottomline is that CCHR is a notable psychiatry skeptic organization. Sure it is a front for Scientology, but this list doesn't proclude such sources from being used. That CCHR is a "pseudoskeptical organization" is just a judgment of a Fyslee (I tend to agree FWIW), but even if it was a judgment of another reliable source, that still doesn't disqualify the CCHR as a notable skeptical organization which has characterized something as pseudoscience. And beyond that, those who are calling psychiatry a pseudoscience per the CCHR sources are each unto themselves notable academics and researchers (Thomas Szasz for instance certainly passes the WP:N threshhold, as does Fred Baughman, Julian Whitaker, and Mary Ann Block, to cite a few).

If we are going to limit the inclusionary criteria of this list article to just mainstream sources, then the entire list article will stand as a WP:NPOV violation and probably should be nominated for deletion as such. However, if this list article also recognizes significant points of view from notable organizations, researchers, and academic outside of the mainstream, then the list becomes compliant with NPOV. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

We need to be careful about how the word "skeptical" is being used here (by you). When dealing with this list and all articles that mention disputes between mainstream and fringe/alternative sources, "skeptical" is referring specifically to "scientific skepticism", as our wikilink clearly indicates. We aren't using it in an unspecific generic sense, meaning to just be critical or doubtful, but rather of doubt and criticism that originates from the mainstream scientific mindset and background knowledge of science. It's not a willy nilly thing that can be twisted in either direction. It is pointed in one direction. In other articles where the subject is quite different, both POV are presented, but this list describes one POV, and points to where the others can be found.

I can't speak about the other named persons, but Julian Whitaker is an infamous pusher of several forms of quackery and pseudoscience, and his skepticism is of precisely the type referred to by Robert Todd Carroll here:

• Commenting on the labels "dogmatic" and "pathological" that the "Association for Skeptical Investigation" puts on critics of paranormal investigations, Robert Todd Carroll of the Skeptic's Dictionary argues that that association "is a group of pseudo-skeptical paranormal investigators and supporters who do not appreciate criticism of paranormal studies by truly genuine skeptics and critical thinkers. The only skepticism this group promotes is skepticism of critics and [their] criticisms of paranormal studies."

Those who are skeptical of the mainstream scientific position are indeed "skeptical" in the generic sense, but they aren't "scientific skeptics". -- Fyslee (talk) 03:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

...but this list describes one POV..."

So essentially, what you are saying is that you want this list to only present one POV of the subject. But I beleive that you already know that this is strictly prohibited by WP:NPOV: All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is a cornerstone of Wikipedia. Are you asking that we ignore this policy? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 21:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

There is also the [CSICOP article], The book 'Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry: Blaming the body', reviewed in NEJM. There is also a section in 'Anti-psychiatry' named Psychiatry as a pseudo-science replete with its own sources. Unomi (talk) 02:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Unomi, if you would like to put together some text and sources for the entry, I will certainly lend my time to help you craft it. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't [removed] BELIEVE that you are actually using a Scientology front group as a reliable source for anything. Have you gone mad at this talkpage? Could you guys read Please read Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Rights#Controversy? Actually, could you read Please read any mainstream assessment of the reliability of anything touched by the CoS? That's just terrible. Are we are going to use a creationist frontgroup to source that the theory of evolution is pseudoscience? God, remove those stupid unacceptable sources Please remove those sources and find some real sourcing. Those sources would last like 5 minutes in WP:RSN before being shot down as being totally unreliable, see Scientology and psychiatry and the section in this comission.

P.D.D.: I have been told that my comment is uncivil. I stroke and remove some unneeded parts. Notice that I didn't mean to insult any editor in this page. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Enric. Does anyone really believe that anti-psychiatry sources from a hermetic science fiction religion are reliable in any reasonable sense of the word? If someone really wants to argue for that, let's take it to the reliable sources noticeboard. But there is no need to make up new rules for this list to deal with the problem

Initially I was puzzled what Fyslee was driving at because when I hear pseudosceptic I think of much more mainstream phenomena such as Randi. I am certainly not looking forward to discussions about whether Quackwatch can be used that focus on the question whether it is pseudosceptic. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with user Levine2112 who states that it looks like a POV-fork if we restrict the inclusion criteria. A major organization (even if it is a "science fiction religion") has characterized the topic as pseudoscience. Can't we just state WHO characterized it as pseudoscience? 70.71.22.45 (talk) 21:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Not in this case.... What should we say: "Scientology, an organization known to lie about its perceived oponents and to push outrageously pseudoscientic measurers of "engram", says that its oponent psychiatry is pseudoscience"? This would belong to List of scientific topics derided as pseudoscience by pseudoscientific organizations. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I honestly don't understand why we keep talking about CCHR/Scientology, it is simply not needed in order to put biopsychiatry on the list per the current criteria. For that we have a book that is titled : 'Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry: Blaming the body' which was incidentally fairly favorably reviewed in NEJM. I guess that Hans is ahead of the game here and it goes to Levine2112s post below regarding what this list is about and who/what gets to inform it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unomi (talk • contribs) 21:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

That's precisely the point. You got it! Better sources must be available that meet the inclusion criteria and will justify the inclusion of certain aspects of psychiatry in the list. There is no need to endlessly persist in demanding the use of a source that is unreliable in its own right, and that doesn't even meet our inclusion criteria. It's just disruptive and a POINT violation. -- Fyslee (talk) 22:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

@Unomi, what you probably want to make now is make a new proposal for consensus, I'll make one below so we can change topic already. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

@Enric - Thanks for refactoring. Much appreciated. My thought here is that since this is merely an article of significant points of view, that CCHR is in fact a reliable source of their organization's point of view. This is not an article which list things that are pseudoscience; rather it is an article which list things that have been characterized as pseudoscience. A characterization is a point of view. CCHR has characterized psychiatry as a pseudoscience. CCHR is a significant organization. Right or wrong in their characterization, there is no denying that CCHR is a significant organization which has characterized psychiatry as pseudoscience. Disallowing CCHR's point of view, clearly violates NPOV. Now then, if this was merely an "List of pseudosciences", then this would be another matter. CCHR is clearly not a reliable source for declaring what is and what isn't a pseudoscience. But this article is not a definitive "List of pseudosciences" but rather a "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience". Characterized = point of view and hence this article should adhere to NPOV by presenting all significant POVs. Does this make sense? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Scientolofy's POV is totally fringe, non-notable, and goes into the "so minoritary it shouldn't be included at all" part of NPOV. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Scientology's POV is totally fringe. Agreed. However, it is notable; in fact it is so notable that it has its own article. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It is still a discussion that is worth having sooner rather than later.. As it happens there are items on this list that use Randi as a source, I have not really heard about the guy before today but his website doesn't exactly exude credibility. Is Randi considered an RS on what *is* pseudoscience or an RS as to his *opinion* on what is pseudoscientific. With all respect to James Randi, it seems that he is a stage magician, not a scientist it also looks like he has made a living for himself as a 'professional skeptic'. I think we should consider properly attributing claims to their sources in-text. This would defuse the oncoming impasse and allow readers to judge for themselves if they consider the sources authoritative. Aliens in DC-10s notwithstanding, scientology have made themselves notable when they have the likes of Tom Cruise decrying psychiatry on prime-time tv. As an aside, I seriously hope that we do not include scientology as sources regarding psychiatry, there is simply no need and it detracts from the case made by 'actual scientists and medical professionals'. Unomi (talk) 02:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Please read James Randi before saying his opinion is not notable in science stuff: co-founder and fellow of CSICOP, he offered the notable million dollar prize for anyone demonstrating paranormal stuff, debunked Uri Geller, appeared in multiple TV programs, guest of Johny Carson, featured at Penny&Teller, he was called by Nature journal to help with the investigation of water memory, etc.

And I mean that nobody cares what Scientology thinks about science, because everybody knows that it's all distorsions based on their POV with no relation to reality, and that those distorsions have achieved no relevance or influence out of the context of Scientology, ok? --Enric Naval (talk) 07:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Enric, I personally agree with you re: Scientology's not being reliable at labelling something definitively as pseudoscience. However, this article is not about definitively labelling any topic as pseudoscience, but rather just including topics which have been characterized as pseudoscience by some notable source. Scientology's point of view here may not be reliable, but it is undeniably notable. As such, we should not exclude their views from this article - as per NPOV. Remember, this article includes entries which are NOT definitively pseudoscience - entries which per PSCI we cannot label as such even in their own articles. Some of the entries have only been characterized as such by a small fraction of notable sources while the majority of the scientific community wouldn't necessarily apply the same characterization. This is not a "list of pseudosciences" but rather a "list of topics characterized as pseudoscience". Since we are dealing with notable characterizations, there is no excuse for dismissing Scientology's characterizations. I know this seems painful. We - as rational, science-minded persons - find it incomprehensible that Scientology's opinions should amount to even a hill of beans. But remember, this is Wikipedia and NPOV is one of our cornerstones and we must abide. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 07:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It's only notable in the context of scientology. Get some independient third-party source saying that Scientology's position has any sort of relevance or influence in the real world, and I'll start listening. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This inclusion criteria of this article relies on notability of the source - not relevance or influence in the real world. If this article were just a list of pseudosciences, then I would agree entirely with you - that Scientology's distorted view of science precludes it from representing the scientific community as a whole. But this article is not simply a list of pseudosciences; it is rather a list of characterizations made by notable sources. "Pseudoscience" is the characterization du jour and Scientology is a notable source (not a reliable source of labelling something "pseudoscience", but a notable source nonetheless which has made such a characterization). Again, if this article was simply "List of Pseudosciences" where we could only include entries that are either obvious pseudosciences or generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, then we would not be dealing with this NPOV issue. As it stands now though, the article allows for the inclusion of items which are not pseudosciences - yet they are included in the list because some notable source has characterized it as such. If we are going to base our inclusion criteria on characterizations (viewpoints) then the article must adhere to the rigors of what NPOV says about viewpoints - in essence, this article must represent all significant viewpoints fairly. This means including the strange yet notable viewpoints of organizations such as CoS. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Second try for consensus

• Psychiatry is a medical specialty devoted to the treatment, study and prevention of mental disorders.

Sources used:

• 'Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry: Blaming the body', book fairly favorably reviewed in NEJM

--Enric Naval (talk) 23:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• Biological Psychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. Critics argue that 'the legitimacy and cultural authority granted to an objective and value-free science is undeserved by biologic psychiatry' and that 'the valid notion of investigating constitutional determinants of psychological disorders has been coopted by a biomedical reductionist ideology.' Such sentiments and conflicting results of scientific research have spawned the Biopsychiatry controversy and ADHD controversy.

There are more sources, I am sure, but as far as I can see we only need one. Unomi (talk) 23:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC) The 2 sentences in quotes are lifted almost verbatim (took out an 'thereby') from the review, they probably do the best job of describing their views. There are 2 interesting studies which we might want to briefly mention and list as sources: No discernible superiority of medication over behavioral therapy after 3 years of regiment and 80% of response to antidepressant medication was duplicated by placebo but I will leave it to others how to mention them, if at all.. Unomi (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and added them as inline refs. Unomi (talk) 01:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am adding the entry as there have been no comments or amendments Unomi (talk) 13:51, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

So, are there objections to adding BioPsychiatry the item in the form it is conceived under Attribution ? Unomi (talk) 12:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

If you remove the full stop after "Dr" (per WP:MOS), or even drop the "Dr" entirely. Verbal chat 12:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

proposal to add Scientology on psychiatry

• Psychiatry The Church of Scientology claims that this field is "pseudoscience", that "the very notion of mental illness is a fraud", that anti-depresant drugs don't work because "there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance", and has attempted to promote legislation in various states forbiding schools from giving mental health advice to pupils.^[1] Scientology's view are consistely rejected by the medical and scientist communities^[1] The Church founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, which defends these ideas. Darcy Gruttadaro, the director of the National Child and Adolescent Action Center for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill said from the CCHR that it was sensationalizing things in order to recruit people [for the Church]^[1] Scientiology's ideas are based in the writings of Scientology's founder Ron Hubbard, who hated psychiatry for unknown reasons and wrote that it was "an evil enterprise, a form of terrorism, and the cause of crime."^[1] In 2005, Tom Cruise, who is a Scientology member, was heavily criticized for expressing in public these ideas.^[2][3]

[1] Salon [2] Time [3] [Telegraph

--Enric Naval (talk) 23:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I made some minor grammatical corrections, but otherwise I think that this is a healthy place to start. Thanks, Enric! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

This is of course the way to write such an entry if we really need it. But we should ask ourselves if we really want the full spectrum of characterisations as pseudoscience, from obvious pseudosciences being characterised as such by recognised experts all the way to this. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

That indeed is the question! Thanks, Hans. Here's the deal though. If we wanted to just include obvious pseudosciences and those topics generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, we'd be a-okay. It would be a much more useful article because it would just be a boolean, yes-no, true-false, black-white sort of scenario. Either the topic is a pseudoscience or it is not. However, when we also allow for some characterizations of topics which are only arguably pseudoscience according to certain notable sources which are not representational of the scientific community in general, then the black-white boolean inclusion criteria opens up to the grades of grey - This is the spectrum which you describe above. With "grey" we are dealing with viewpoints. And with viewpoints we are dealing with NPOV. And per NPOV, we are obligated to represent fairly all significant viewpoints. Scientology's viewpoint here is certainly very grey, but it is significant and I think that Enric's preliminary draft is well on its way to representing such a view fairly. So my answer to your question is: Regardless of what we want to include, we are obligated per NPOV to have the full spectrum of significant characterizations represented in this article (no matter how grotesque and repugnant those characterizations strike us). Anything less and we would have an NPOV violation on our hands. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Did anyone notice the addition I tried [7]? Here's how it went:

Psychiatry has been characterized as a pseudoscience by the anti-psychiatry movement. Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology are particularly known for expressing this viewpoint. Psychiatrists counter that biochemical imbalances have been proven. However, recent reviews of depression medications have found that their benefits have been exaggerated by publication bias, with negative trials being "buried", and there are some contradictory results on the serotonin hypothesis.

The view that psychiatry is pseudoscience has been alleged most notably by the anti-psychiatry movement, including several academics who were/are not members of the CoS. I'm open to making my text above more critical of the view. Regardless, the view cannot be attributed only to Scientology. II | (t - c) 01:13, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a good start as well. I like that it contains a little less invective. And, if there are non-CoS notable sources of this characterization, I believe that we should include those as well with proper attribution. Nice work! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:20, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with II, while Tom Cruise 'may' deserve a mention because of his very public stature, Psychiatry has been criticized long before CoS. R D Laing, who is arguably notable both as a personality and within the field, argued that 'Mainstream' psychiatry was based on logical fallacies. Michel Foucault, as far as I know, thought it just another tool of class warfare.

I think that readers deserve the very best and interesting wikilinks we can offer, if we have a choice (because of size constraints) between offering [Tom Cruise] and the likes of [R D Laing] or [Michael Foucault] we should go for the latter group. The inclusion of CoS (in this item) only serves to detract from the 'high quality' critics. Unomi (talk) 07:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with both the inclusions candidates which are nice NPOV texts. We should think about the readers. Someone heard the psychiatry is a PS and goes to the list. It is informative to explain the context for that claim. MaxPont (talk) 08:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that Psychiatry deserves 2 separate or sub-entries; one for 'Classic' Psychiatry with its straightjackets, ECT etc. (characterized as aversion therapy by Foucault) and one on BioPsychiatry which I think is its most criticized current aspect. Psychiatry is a broad field and we might as well give good 'entry points' for readers. Unomi (talk) 13:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The WP community favors generous inclusion criterias

If you go back in the archive of this talk page there are a number of controversies where several editors have expressed that the inclusion criteria should be generous. Fyslee himself did that only a week ago[8].

This debate is also relevant for a number of other articles about fringe topics. Most fringe topics are simply ignored by mainstream RS because they are – fringe. No highly reliable sources state that, for instance, “time cube theory is a pseudoscience”. Therefore it is necessary to be allowed to use the term PS (and the tag PS in other articles) without explicit reference that “X is a PS” in highly regarded SCIENTIFIC source. There is a long tradition to include peripheral players (e.g. Randi, Quackwatch and CSICOP) as allowed sources for the PS claim.

Look at the example with hypnosis, which is included in this list even though only parts of hypnosis is a PS. Psychiatry should be included in the same way. Thomas Szasz is a perfectly credible RS for that inclusion. By the way, psychoanalysis should also be included with the world leading academic Karl Popper as a RS.MaxPont (talk) 08:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with generous inclusion criteria, I welcome it. But I do think, especially since this is 'characterized as', that the characterization should be properly in-text attributed. Unomi (talk) 09:39, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a list of characterizations and therefore we must include in-text attribution. This will be especially important for entries which have been characterized as a pseudoscience only be some notable fringe or partisan group/person. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Lest it got lost in the shuffle above, I'll repeat that I'm generally for attribution. In cases of doubt, rather one attribution too many than one too little. Right now we have plenty of references, and I suspect (without looking right now) that most of them identify the source. In most cases that should be enough, but if it is felt that in-line mention of the source is better, then try it and let's see what it looks like. I suspect that based on style guidelines, someone might object to "over-attribution", sort of like "overlinking" is a style problem, but since attribution is more important to content, I'd be inclined to support a generous use. We just need to use common sense. If the reference is very clear about the source, it might not be necessary with in-line attribution, but if not, then it might be appropriate. I'm not really sure until we see what it actually looks like, since this is a hypothetical situation. It at least sounds good in theory. -- Fyslee (talk) 00:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Last year this list was divided in sections according to attribution: "PS according to Scientific bodies", "PS according to skeptical organisations", etc. Maybe it is time to go back to that.MaxPont (talk) 07:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that no matter what the outcome of this recent discussion that such a partitioning would be a better format.

1. It would be more clear for the reader.
2. It would encourage editors to find the very best ie scientific sources for their entries.

Unomi (talk) 08:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Coming new to this discussion, but I think the current categorising is probably more useful, at least if someone is looking for topics in a particular area. Perhaps have "PS according to Scientific bodies", "PS according to skeptical organisations", etc then each divided into subject? CheesyBiscuit (talk) 12:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

We got rid of that manner of grouping, partially because it required OR and editorial bias. With proper attribution, readers can make up their own minds, plus it's simpler and easier this way. -- Fyslee (talk) 13:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Having read through the whole discussion thread now - including many paragraphs of whether to use scientologists as a source(!) - why not make it a list of 'pseudoscintific topics'? I've read through the arguments above against this, and don't find them convincing. We have other lists that claim to be definitive lists. Granted, this one could prove somewhat controversial, but that doesn't mean it can't be npov. (Case in point: we don't have astrology on the List_of_astronomy_topics page, however notable astrology may be, even if there is more coverage of astrology in newspapers than of all astronomy combined.) This removes the need to fuss over the 'characterised' label, makes our task easier, and almost certainly makes the list more useful for readers. CheesyBiscuit (talk) 09:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I read through all of the stuff as well -- the current rationales seem to have been made by a committee (well, I guess they were) and so there is little consistency at all in the list. No wonder the great Scientology debate rages on. Hoaxes are next to actual superstitions, next to seriously proposed but deficient science next to religous beliefs. The categories seem designed, if anything, to further the confusion. And the reason "characterised" is used ia apparently to allow inclusion of some fairly iffy material on the claim that as long as a nearly reliable source calls something "pseudoscience" that this lets WP off the hook. Were I king, I would take the hoaxes out of the list, and make a separate list of hoaxes. A separate list of "parodies." A separate list of "legendary pasts of the Earth." A separate list of "superstitions" (including the Bermuda Triangle, crop circles, dowsing etc.) A separate list of "mental powers" topics (potentially including ESP etc.) A separate list of "medical pseudoscience" over the years. A list of "religious beliefs" though I doubt they should be here as a matter of fact. And a list of "otherwise not categorized pseudoscience." Stuff which is not only clearly not pseudoscience, but real and with articles on it does not belong here. And the lede is too long, too obscure, and too all-encompassing to do much good. Now will everyone line up to disagree? Collect (talk) 10:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Let me be the first to line up to agree :) Unomi (talk) 21:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

We have chosen to collect them all in one list to make it more useful. There are different arrangements that could be possible, but this manner of doing so eliminates editorial bias, allowing alphabetical order to do the arranging, except for the obvious categories, which is not determined by editorial bias. Then editorial bias is reduced even further by simply allowing the sources to speak for themselves, and letting the reader determine just how much weight they will give them. Previously, editorial bias was involved in determining the notability and weight each source should be given and dividing things up according to the source, which was never a satisfactory solution. That led to lots of edit warring. So far the article has been relatively peaceful ever since we made the title and inclusion criteria match each other. Your concerns would have been a factor in the decision previously made, but at this point it won't make a significant enough difference for it to be worth undoing a consensus and the ensuing long series of edit wars and interminable discussions lasting many months. Let's just back up around this consensus version and make it even better. There are already enough attempts to sabotage and disrupt the list on the table, without this proposal (which I'm sure is in good faith) being added to the mix. -- Fyslee (talk) 01:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's fine as long as it is made explicit in every entry who is making the claim. MaxPont (talk) 06:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

(out) The point is that they are not all "in one list." The current set of categories is arbitrary and misleading, and placing the items cheek-by-jowl makes them all appear to have equal weight (e.g. "Lunar effect", "Velikovsky" and "Face on Mars" have no language in their descriptions to indicate any difference in their nature at all). . As it is, I find the article quite wonderfully unusable <g>. I do not care what the prior categories which had problems were, but can you give me some example where the list I uttered would have a specific problem? Thanks! Collect (talk) 11:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the current arrangement has reached a consensus at all. The disputes above show that there is still conflict over perceived editorial bias in the present form (e.g. does a scientology source count for anything). I think, on the contrary, it would be much easier to avoid bias - and accusations of bias - if we dropped the 'characterised as' term; either way, we have to select sources appropriately. A list of pseudoscientific topics is useful and informative. A list of everything that's ever been labelled pseudoscience isn't. CheesyBiscuit (talk) 13:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Think of it this way: would you rather have a list of scientific topics, or a list of topics characterised as science? CheesyBiscuit (talk) 13:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Really well stated. I agree whole heartedly. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 16:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

However if we named it back then certain editors would be pushing and wikilawyering to remove lots of genuine and well known PS, as has already been tried. Revisiting this question so quickly after it was resolved seems disruptive. I disagree with CB that the current categories are arbitrary and misleading, and there is no reason to assume that every entry is equally considered PS. On scientology, no it doesn't count as a valid RS for labelling something PS. Verbal chat 17:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe it's not entirely unheard-of that a compromise eventually fails because of problems with its implementation. I am not saying that this is the case with the present one. But if anything is disruptive then it is calling other editors disruptive merely because they don't agree with you. When the list was renamed it was my understanding that the inclusion criteria are only slightly relaxed. If Levine's understanding was that they would be relaxed to the point where they would fully reflect the title, I can't see anything wrong about him complaining now. I don't want Scientology mentioned in this list, but with an incident in 2005 being so notable that it was all over the media at the time [9] [10] and is still being referred to [11] [12], your response looks like shooting the messenger to me. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Oooooooooh, look, third-party indendient sources! Yummy! I'm making a proposal below. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Levine disagreeing with me is not the reason he is disruptive. The title matches the criteria, and Levine was fully involved in the discussion at the time and fully aware of what the "compromise" entailed. Scientology will not be used as a source for characterising things on this article for reasons already presented. Verbal chat 22:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Then why - praytell - are you characterizing me as disruptive? For the record, I was not fully aware of what the "compromise" entailed, but I think I did predict the inherent POV problems of such a title. As for the inclusion criteria, that was just changed recently in an attempt to limit the views expressed in this article. I did not predict this - and it is this which has plunged this article further into this NPOV debacle. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

(out) I don't think anyone is being disruptive. Verbal, what topics are you concerned about that would be lost if we went to a list of pseudosciences? The only ones I can see that might be lost would be subliminal perception (that's too broad, it should be more specific), Einstein-Cartan-Evans and scalar field theories (the latter two because they're testable and potentially verifiable, so not really pseudoscience, just wrong). Everything else would probably stay (except, perhaps, some of the religious topics, although as the article notes that these are often not classed as pseudoscience I don't see a big problem with keeping them). If we can commit to keeping most of what is here in the article then do you still object to a title change? CheesyBiscuit (talk) 11:59, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Darwinism

Moved from article –

• Darwinism is a theory about the evolution of species developed by English naturalist Charles Darwin. Karl Popper characterized it as pseudoscience based on his belief it failed the requirement for falsifiability. Darwin's original theory didn't offer an adequate explanation of how evolution happened. It was later joined with Gregor Mendel's ideas to form the modern evolutionary synthesis, which was reinforced by later scientific discoveries and now has widespread scientific acceptance.

There are multiple problems with this. Darwinism is a catch-all term that means different things to different people at different times, Popper didn't call it "pseudoscience", he stated that it was "not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program." In the same paper, he continued "And yet, the theory is invaluable...." and later decided that he had "changed [his] mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection". Popper also stated "When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today's theory - that is Darwin's own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity.." so the statement about Darwin's original theory is nonsense. So, inaccurate original research, not suitable for this list. . . dave souza, talk 08:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

If this is the case then I support its removal. Verbal chat 14:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it's creationist cant as currently presented - to further expand on the quote provided:

I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological", and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems. I still believe that natural selection works this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection. From "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind", Dialectica, vol. 32, no. 3-4, 1978, pp. 339-355 --Cameron Scott (talk) 14:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I've removed Darwinism once again. Popper did indeed recant his 1976 statement that "Darwinism" isn't falsifiable, indeed repeatedly recanted it. Its inclusion in this list is contrary to WP editorial policy, in that (1) it's not accurately cited as being characterized as a pseudoscience, a word Popper never used w.r.t. Darwinism or evolution (WP:V); (2) its inclusion is original research that wildly distorts Popper's briefly held position that evolutionary theory doesn't fit the falsifiablilty criterion of scientific method (WP:NOR). and (3) its inclusion is intractably biased against one of the most thoroughly confirmed theories ever put forth, which numerous reliable sources have demonstrated is quite falsifiable (WP:NPOV). Three strikes; it's outta here. ... Kenosis (talk) 15:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Kenosis's move here. Sifaka ^talk 04:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I've removed psychoanalysis again. the same source cannot be valid in one instance and invalid in a different one, at least not when it is making the same claim. --Ludwigs2 15:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It totally depends on what the reference actually says. I haven't got it to hand. From what has been said here though, Darwinism isn't supported. Verbal chat 15:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I will add the following entry unless there are reasoned objections :

• The Theory of evolution has been characterized by geneticist Max Whitten as unfalsifiable in his statement "Some biologists would claim that they are validating the theory of evolution on a daily basis. Not true. If something happens that is consistent with the theory, all well and good. If it doesn’t happen, we will likely find a satisfying explanation within our prevailing worldview. I cannot call to mind a credible experiment that would challenge the theory of evolution."

Let me know what you think. Unomi (talk) 17:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we should also include Popper's characterization. If he later recanted it, then we should include that as well. We should tell the whole story.

Re: Psychoanalysis - Did Popper recant that characterization as well? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 17:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Popper never characterized evolutionary theory or "Darwinism" as "pseudoscience". He explicitly cited "astrology" and "psychoanalysis" as examples of pseudoscience, in "Science: Conjectures and Refutations" (1963). ... Kenosis (talk) 17:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Reasoned objection number one: the little known professor is not characterising it as unfalsifiable, the statement is clearly stating that it isn't validated on a daily basis, and he can't call to mind a credible experiment that would challenge it. His failure of memory doesn't mean that he's clsiming it's unfalsifiable, nor does it characterise evolution as pseudoscience. Nice try, but a big stretch. . dave souza, talk 17:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at google scholar before you state your ignorance as fact. Note that he is in fact a widely published and cited geneticist, I am fairly sure this has nothing to do with 'failure of memory', genetics is his field of expertise. His statement is indeed indicative of his opinion that it is unfalsifiable(the reason is given by Popper and his view of it as a research programme), this, per the inclusion criteria, makes the above a valid entry. Unomi (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

So, it's a valid research programme, and a widely published geneticist has said that it hasn't been falsified. The fact that it's difficult to sucessfully falsify, and no-one's done it, doesn't make it pseudoscience by any stretch. Your interpretation of his opinion is clearly original research, unsupported by the wording of the paper. . . dave souza, talk 18:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not claiming that it *is* pseudoscience, what I am stating is the fact that it has been characterized as being unfalsifiable, if you do not believe that this then constitutes similitude with pseudoscience I suggest you go rewriting [Falsifiability] and [scientific method] then come back here. There is no 'interpretation' necessary beyond that which we all have to apply when experiencing our environment, but by all means let us know how you interpret his statement. Unomi (talk) 19:03, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Read Whitten's article. He isn't calling evolutionary biology unscientific. He most certainly isn't suggesting it's pseudoscience. As I said below, Conservapedia is not a reliable source. Although, quite frankly, even the Conservapedia article shows a more nuanced understanding of what Whitten said than you're displaying here: "It is not a technical issue that Whitten addressed, but a social issue throughout research in general." Guettarda (talk) 19:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Just in case User:Unomi actually is thinking and acting in good faith here, I recommend Unomi please go re-read, or read, WP:SYN. Then go read WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. Then review WP:V. In no particular order. Thanks. ... Kenosis (talk) 19:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The word 'pseudoscience' is not a criteria for inclusion, the characterization is. NPOV#Undue_weight is irrelevant as this is a list of topics that have been 'characterized' as pseudoscience, per the lead and voluminous discussion on this talk page regarding what forms these characterizations may take. This includes statements which would have a topic fall outside the strict bounds of scientific methods. I am aware that Whitten made statements regarding the constructs that surround research as a whole, yet he used evolution, a field with which he is no doubt intimate, as an example. I am not sure where you are going with WP:V and WP:SYN are you claiming he did not say it? It is not a hard sentence to parse my friends: "Some biologists would claim that they are validating the theory of evolution on a daily basis. Not true. If something happens that is consistent with the theory, all well and good. If it doesn’t happen, we will likely find a satisfying explanation within our prevailing worldview. I cannot call to mind a credible experiment that would challenge the theory of evolution." Again, I think you are misunderstanding that it is not the relative merits of the theory of evolution that is the issue, it is the fact that he made the above statement. Unomi (talk) 19:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Which you clearly fail to understand. No consensus for adding that example. . dave souza, talk 19:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Then tell me how you understand the passage? Unomi (talk) 19:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

"NPOV#Undue_weight is irrelevant as this is a list of topics that have been 'characterized' as pseudoscience" - This statement is not true. This list does not cover things that are obviously not pseudoscience. If you include Evolution as part of Darwinism, within the scientific community and academia the level of support for evolution is essentially universal. This list is not a catch-all for every little thing which skeptics have been skeptical about. The criteria for inclusion are stricter than this. Sifaka ^talk 03:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a lot of attention being focused on just one source. In keeping an eye on the grand scale of things, I would like to point out that Popper is one source among very many. Even if Popper did not recant his errant characterization of evolution as an untestable scientific theory, "Darwinism" i.e. Evolution still would have no place on this list. Just being notable is not enough, at this level the notability among your notable peers begins to matter, i.e. parity. The references section in Creation-evolution controversy lists a bunch of people and organizations who are as notable of even more notable than Popper who vouch for the theory of evolution. This PDF on the misuse of Popper's statements about evolutionary theory is probably also highly relevant but I can't read it due to the site demanding a subscription. Sifaka ^talk 04:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Good find. Haven't read the whole article thoroughly yet, but looking over it, it's pretty clear that (a) the whole Popper-evolution issue is far more complicated than I had realised, and (b) using Popper as a source for a claim that evolution is pseudoscience isn't appropriate. Guettarda (talk) 12:50, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Unomi, please see the passage by Cioffi which I added to the psychoanalysis entry. Equating unfalsifiability with pseudoscience is problematic. He argues that psychoanalysis is pseudoscience and unfalsifiable, but not pseudoscience because it's unfalsifiable. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the point here is not whether "unfalsifiability equals science" is a true statement in general, but rather if Popper felt it to be true a true statement. We just want to know if by stating that foo is unfalsifiable, was Popper - in his own mind - characterizing foo as a pseudoscience. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Popper suggested the criterion of falsifiability to distinguish science from non-science. Does anyone here disagree with that? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:05, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

And discussed the example of evolution theory, which he clearly states is a valuable scientific programme, to consider the issues with that criterion. Why are you pushing this common creationist falsehood about Popper? . . dave souza, talk 20:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

And why are we having a discussion that is clearly intended to provide a WP:SYN answer? Did Popper consider "Darwinism" to be pseudo-science - no. If anyone has sources that dispute that, let's see them - because we are not running a debating club where there is a prize for the most novel answer. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not pushing anything other than we adhere to NPOV and get the story right. If Popper indeed did not characterize Darwinism as pseudoscience, then we should definitely not include such a characterization. That said, I am fairly certain that we can find other notable sources more clearly characterizing Darwinsim, neo-Darwinism and/or social Darwinism as pseudoscientific, and when we do, we should include those characterization in this list. As an aside, I personally believe in natural selection and I am a devout agnostic. I am not trying to push my POV here whatsoever (which would be that Darwinism is scientific). I am rather pushing for NPOV by requesting (demanding even!) that we represent fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

You've also been warned and banned for a week from another pseudoscience related article for tendentious editing, ignoring consensus and RfCs, circular arguments, and continuing disruption. Think you need to go through that again? . . dave souza, talk 20:27, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

How about you address my points rather than attack my character and lodge threats? Let's keep it civil. Yes? If you can't handle that, then you are under no obligation to contribute to this discussion. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 21:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Ludwigs, I'm commenting on your behaviour, not your character. You should know better than to put up vague arguments without suitable sources for improving the article, in clear breach of WP:TALK, apparently because you want to make a WP:POINT about the criteria for including subjects in this list. That isn't acceptable anywhere, and is particularly unacceptable on WP:PSCI article. I'll have a look in at the discussion tomorrow, and sincerely hope that you'll improve your behaviour immediately. . . dave souza, talk 21:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I apologize. I thought you were addressing me, not Ludwigs2. Even still, I don't approve of uncivil attacks on his/her character either. They have nothing to do with the substantive discussion we are trying to have here and only serve to disrupt. Please refrain from such behavior. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, for some reason I was adding the edits of the two of you and making five. Probably editing too late at night, but I don't know how I could have got you two mixed up. Anyway, I've already mentioned pointyness to Ludwigs, regarding your substantive discussion, the google search is no indication of reliable sources supporting the assertion. The reason I think that the Popper allegation is a common creationist claim is that Karl Popper#Issue of Darwinism (as linked above in the section copied here from this article) is referenced to CA211.1: Popper on natural selection's testability, Talk Origins Archive. Obviously it's a common misunderstanding, and I'm glad to be assured that you were acting in good faith, having misunderstood Popper's position. . . . dave souza, talk 08:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Well, where are we then? Of course it is 'problematic', but that does not make it less so? Are the any other tenets of scientific methodology we should leave out as well? This btw is an interesting read. Bringing 'Creationism' into this is not helpful and seems to indicate a mindset that might be impeding your judgment here. This is not an exercise in mindreading, but in listing topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience, where the criteria for what constitutes such a characterization is quite loose, as set by the consensus of contributing editors. Popper seems to have espoused the position that falsifiability should be a criterion for considering something scientific, and I think we can all agree that being unfalsifiable is quite problematic, even if sometimes unavoidable. Unomi (talk) 20:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Since your tone, your line of thinking etc are all classic creationist cant - what are editors suppose to think? AGF doesn't require us to be pretend to be simple minded. Please outline why your linked paper is an interesting read and it's relevance to this article - we aren't mind-readers. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

What tone? That I take offense at editors swooping in and reverting entries that had been added on the basis of long discussion on this talk page? What line of thinking? That when someone writes a passage to the effect that it is unfalsifiable that I take note of it? The linked paper is not required reading and has zero relevance to the discussion, it is merely interesting. What is your line of thinking here? Have you read through this talkpage yet? Unomi (talk) 20:48, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Unomi, this WP:TALK page is for discussion of detailed properly sourced proposals for improving the article, not off-topic gossip. Please focus your efforts accordingly. . dave souza, talk 21:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should do the same, you could start by answering my direct question above, reproduced here for convenience: 'Then tell me how you understand the passage?' Unomi (talk) 22:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Quoting Karl Popper, speaking on "Darwinism" the year after his book Unended Quest was first published in 1976, a speech that was published verbatim in writing in 1978:
..... "I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological", and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems.
..... "I still believe that natural selection works this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection."
..... From "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind", Dialectica, vol. 32, no. 3-4, 1978, pp. 339-355. Here's a link to the relevant portion of his speech leading up to where he says "I mention this problem because...": [13]
.....I should also reiterate that Popper was referring specifically to "testability" and "logical status" w.r.t. the concept of "natural selection", never using the word "pseudoscience" in connection with "Darwinism" or "evolution". Kenosis (talk) 23:41, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Earth sciences

Removed Continental drift as that dispute was resolved a half century ago so inclusion here is only historic. Belongs in superceded scientific theories rather than here. Also remove Meteorites - again ancient problem well resolved, included in section "Previously disputed unusual natural phenomena". Vsmith (talk) 11:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see my comment in the section below. They've since been replaced, but I'm inclined to remove them again. I think it's time for participating editors to get clear on what is the proper scope of "characterized as". IMO, this is not an appropriate place to make cursory mention of fields and theories because they once were referred to as pseudoscience by somebody, and not a place to do a quaint historical analysis of instances where, say, theories that were at some point in time alleged by somebody to be pseudoscientific turned out later to have merit after scientific method came to be fully applied to those theories. At a minimum, if there are going to be such historical observations included, they should be clarified as historical with a cogent note to the reader about the circumstances under which they were once characterized as such. ... Kenosis (talk) 14:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Stop removing content which can be improved by editing, you were Bold, I've reverted. Discuss, don't assume. Unomi (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Er... "improved by editing"? Meteorites was listed twice, as I pointed out above, please read and digest what I did before thoughtlessly reverting and follow your own advice: Discuss, don't assume. Now, can you explain your reasoning for preserving a double listing? Also note that I did "improve by editing" just prior to deciding that a half century old debate simply didn't really belong. Vsmith (talk) 21:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:PRESERVE is trumped by the three core content policies, WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. The entry for Darwinism is in direct violation of all three, for the reasons I pointed out in the talk section just above. It's out of here. ... Kenosis (talk) 15:48, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

We're also at the discuss stage of WP:BRD, as Darwinism was a recent (and rather pointy) addition. To stop edit warring leave it out until consensus is reached, but the discussion is somewhat fragmented right now. Multiple reverts are never a good idea on this page. I don't think this content currently can be improved by editing, and the moment it is improved by removal as it isn't supported. Verbal chat 15:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we should still include historical characterizations, but make it clear that the characterization is historical. Remember, this article attempts to "tell the story" of topics which have been characterized as pseudoscience. Let's tell the full story if needed. If a topic was once characterized as a pseudoscience by some notable source but later called a science by the same or other notable source, let's provide all of the details. It will make this article richer and abide better with the three core content policies - especially WP:NPOV. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 17:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

• Was continental drift really called pseudoscience? Perhaps we should distinguish between things which can reasonably be called pseudosciences and those that can't. A plausible testable scientific hypothesis cannot be really be a pseudoscience. II | (t - c) 17:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure. WP:WEIGHT is definitely an issue here. Without some better level of clarity about the appropriate scope of this list than the small community of participating editors presently appears to have, one could readily just go through the million-plus google results for "pseudoscience", and if a source that can be argued to be a "reliable source" said something was at one point in time called a pseudoscience, just throw it into the list with a citation. Indeed, we might pick up a copy of Williams' Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience and throw in every topic, theory, hypothesis, field, etc. in that voluminous work too. ... Kenosis (talk) 21:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The method you are describing is exactly what is done at List of common misconceptions, although not without opposition (including mine). If an article in a local newspaper says that it is a common misconception that the moon is made of green cheese, then it's included in that list. We can and should do it differently here, but then we need to find objective criteria. Otherwise almost everything is a borderline case, and the discussions will never stop. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

@ Hans: maybe what we need is to reconceptualize the way lists are handled on Wikipedia - something to the effect that they need to have a clearly spelled out and closed-ended criteria for inclusion? I've never much dealt with lists on wikipedia, so I don't know if there's any policy pages that relate to them. do you? --Ludwigs2 21:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not very familiar with lists either, but you may want to look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists#Guidelines. I think we merely need to find specific objective criteria that we can agree on. I think we should only include notable claims that something is a pseudoscience, and have higher notability requirements in case of more established fields. This is analogous to the principle that exceptional claims require exceptional sources. This would require someone like Popper or Cioffi to list psychoanalysis, but much less to list laundry balls. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

seriously?

ok, I'm as much a fan of absurdity as any one else. If you all want this page to be silly, I'm sure I can fill it with dozens (if not hundreds) of references where some credible sources said 'X' is pseudoscience, semi-science, poor science, and the like, and I'm sure we'll all have a great laugh over the things we find on that list (for instance, I'm pretty sure the Theory of Relativity will make the cut).

If you want to take this page seriously, however, then we need to set some standards. Psychoanalysis does not belong on a list of 'topics characterized as pseudoscience', because as far as I know only one person (Popper) ever characterized it that way, and the technique is acknowledged by a number of professional and scientific organizations. so it's up to you guys - do we let this page deteriorate into a massive, unstructured list of every properly sources, pissy observation anyone ever made, or do we start exercising a bit of common sense? --Ludwigs2 21:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

you guys are no fun. Expand that and maybe make a list of topics considered pseudoscience in the past article. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:20, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

If there is any objective definition of pseudoscience, rather than just as a pejorative label for despicable things off the mainstream, then psychoanalysis definitely qualifies. It's blatantly obvious that they are not doing science; but of course they pretend to, to be respectable.

Including psychoanalysis in this list was proposed above by MaxPont in section #Marxism as pseudoscience, and myself and Fyslee agreed, no objections.

Fyslee started section #Inclusion of psychoanalysis to pursue this further. Levine seemed to agree with the inclusion. Wandering Courier contradicted on the grounds that it is not a pseudoscience but left the discussion after Fyslee's response saying that only whether it has been prominently criticised as one is relevant. OrangeMarlin suggested it is a "real medical science" and "only a few nutjobs" believe it's a pseudoscience, but he left the discussion after Levine reminded him that he can hardly dismiss Popper in this way. Then I translated some passages from a German journalist specialising on psychoanalysis, who in 2004 found encouraging signs that the subject may be on the way to become scientific. I also mentioned the rather prominent criticism (many Google Scholar citations) of psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience by Frank Cioffi. Unfortunately it's not available online.

So it looks as if we had a consensus for including psychoanalysis so far. And no, Enric, this is not a problem of the past, as my extensive quotations from 2004 show. Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience that, for some reason, has become respectable. It is trying to become a science., but having serious difficulties due to its anti-scientific culture. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Honestly I didn't mean to try to make a WP:POINT, yes it is true that a great deal of things have been characterized as pseudoscience, afaik Einstein was somewhat dubious of his own theories from time to place. Falsifiability and reproducibility are rather stringent criteria to meet, and, it seems to me, that a great deal of our 'mainstream' tenets are not quite capable of achieving them due to the arrow of time and that we are 'unique, just like everybody else'.

What might be more interesting then would be to start with a 'scientific method primer', discuss the inherent difficulties of each aspect and note how/why/to what degree the topics we list are unable to meet them. This would be educational, fun and dare I say it, NPOV. This might also get us over the hump of he said/she said. What do you think? Unomi (talk) 23:16, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)Frankly, Hans, it irks me to see a well-established field like psychoanalysis lined up shoulder to shoulder with biorhythms, crystal healing, and laundry balls, without any distinctions being drawn between them. That's just blatant guilt by association. Whatever you might think about the merits of psychoanalysis, it is not on a level with laundry balls. now there are two ways to approach this problem: make this page much more complex (so that it's clear that psychoanalysis has the support of major universities, scholarly bodies, and scientific and professional organizations, while laundry balls don't), or restrict the range of the page so that it only lists out clear pseudosciences. as it stands, this page has pseudoscience, scientific fields that have notable detractors, popular mythology that doesn't even qualify as science, and weird unclassifiable things that (I think) are here because someone found them amusing. it's a mess, and while I don't mind the mess per se (it's a list, after all), reputable activities like psychoanalysis ought to be left out of it. --Ludwigs2 23:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course it's a problem of degree. I believe the original purpose of this list was to exploit exactly this guilt-by-association method and blur the difference of degree in pseudoscientificity (is there a proper word for this?) on the scale astrology – therapeutic touch – homeopathy – acupuncture. The less pseudoscientific a field is, the bigger the threat perceived by pseudosceptics, and the more they attack it. If we don't distinguish between astrology and acupuncture on this list, then it would be absurd to devise extra rules to preserve the dignity of psychoanalysis.

Frankly, psychoanalysis simply doesn't deserve it. Have you seen my quotations above from Altmeyer's articles? E.g. he quotes a president of the International Psychoanalytical Association in indirect speech: "According to him, the psychoanalytic schools still equalled priest seminaries, in which canonical schooling and bible reading replaced intellectual exchange. The current form of training analysis breeded dependency, conformity and credulity. Far from developing scientific criteria for testing the validity of a certain theory, the plausibility of a new concept, or the efficiency of a new therapeutic intervention, the debate was carried out as an undecidable battle about pure ideas and within the framework of group loyalties: just a religious war." They are pseudoscientific, and some of them know it and try to do something about it. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand your objection, I think the question is just what is on par with laundry balls? If and when people get around to proper attribution and some proper 'pro/con' argument format then it might not be so jarring? Go ahead, write a stirring paragraph about why Psychoanalysis is 'proper science'. Unomi (talk) 00:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

stirring paragraph?!? lol - OH the tempTAtion!!!

I don't think I'd argue that PA is a 'proper science' (in part because I think that term is a little vacuous, but mostly because PA doesn't lend itself to rigorous testing). I'd actually class it about the same way I'd class traditional chinese medicine, or any other systematic investigation of subjective phenomena (in fact, Freud's original conception of libido had a lot in common with chi). And Jung, of course, explicitly adopts a religious model when he talks about psychoanalysis, so no surprises there, Hans. besides, the quote you just gave is talking about PA as an academic subject, and it's well-known that academia as a whole is a kind of secular seminary. I am more concerned about the fact that placing PA on this page amounts to a far more stringent condemnation of it than could ever be found in reliable sources. I mean, I think we agree on the problem here, but what is the proper solution?

this page is close to being a topics wikipedians think are stupid page; I'm tempted to nominate it for deletion on those grounds. I'd rather fix it, though, so what do we do with it? --Ludwigs2 01:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

"PA doesn't lend itself to rigorous testing" comes remarkably close to the special pleading that is typical for apologists of pseudosciences. "[A] far more stringent condemnation of it than could ever be found in reliable sources" – have you read Cioffi? Last time I looked several pages were available on Google Books, but I can't find them any more. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Hans, If you're going to assert that I'm an 'apologist for pseudoscience' at least have the courtesy to do it directly, rather than through this type of backhanded insinuation. that way I could take you to task for it properly.

the comment that "PA doesn't lend itself to rigorous testing" was not an apologist position, but rather a fair assessment of the methodological and technical limitations of the field. The first, necessary step in testing a theory against evidence is having the tools one needs to effectively measure the phenomena in question, and it is common in modern science for a theory to be presented before the tools that will be needed to test it even exist. remember, it was a good half-century after Einstein proposed that gravity could bend space and time that technology advanced far enough to produce tools that could measure those effects. when you start talking about fields (like psychoanalysis) that deal explicitly in subjective phenomena, you run into the fact that we don't have very many tools to measure subjective phenomena. that means that (currently) we cannot test psychoanalytic theories with objective rigor. if you want to pull out your crystal ball and assert that subjective phenomena like this can never be tested rigorously, do it on your own time. You seem to be stuck in some version of the Skinner 'black box' model, which basically asserts that subjective phenomena can't be measured, and therefore science is obliged to treat them as though they don't exist. Whether or not you even know that you're arguing from that model is a separate issue, but it's not a model that has a lot of currency in academia (outside of medical and biological research, which still rest heavily on a stimulus/response paradigm for animal testing). Now, if psychoanalysis were saying something that contravened well-established scientific evidence, then I'd be happy to call them pseudoscientific. Likewise if psychoanalysis was not trying to gather testable data (which it clearly is - I can find reams of studies with a 30 second google search), or if psychoanalysis were actively trying to promote itself over ideas that have stronger evidentiary claims (which it clearly isn't). You're entitled to hold a radical behavioralist viewpoint, we can have a long, interesting discussion about that elsewhere, if you like. you're not entitled to push it on the rest of the world as the One Real Scientific Truth. --Ludwigs2 16:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, if I had known that you are not aware of my history of conflicts with ScienceApologist, OrangeMarlin etc., I would have been more careful. I meant my comment strictly literally. There are limitations, but they seem to be in part home-made. Have you read my quotations in the section above? It makes no sense to repeat them all here, word for word. It seems that they have started using literal transcripts for research purposes, instead of the analyst's subjective notes, only very recently. That's a joke. It's just about the same level of rigour as homeopathic "provings". We have homeopathy on this list (in fact, it's even in the pseudoscience category), even though one can argue that it's primarily a practice of preparing double-blind placebos and only the research/explanation aspects of it are pseudoscience. I am not a behaviouralist at all. But AFAIK many psychoanalytic dogmas are simply not plausible, and some practices highly dubious. But I am not an expert, and I refuse to continue this discussion in this theoretical way, i.e. before I got the article by Cioffi which is widely cited. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

apologies, I'm not very good at locating people in the wiki-world; I tend to take everyone at immediate face value (which is often a good thing, but sometimes means I make gross misrepresentations). I also think I need to take a wikibreak from this page for a couple of days; I'm apparently a little more grumpy than I thought I was. at any rate, I'm not really trying to defend psychoanalysis here. I'm just trying to distinguish a "real" scientific enterprise (which has pronounced flaws and notable detractors) from things that are nonsense. Psychoanalysis has:

• a research paradigm (however flawed)
• an established academic presence, both for research and education
• a large number of practitioners
• professional organizations of its own, and recognition from other professional organizations

it's problematic calling it pseudoscience on wp:undue weight issues alone, since there are likely thousands of reputable scholars who teach, train, examine, and practice it. A pseudoscience, by contrast, usually has (at best) a handful of scholarly supporters, with the remainder of its adherents being dedicated non-scholars. you may be absolutely right about psychoanalysis being bunk (I reserve judgment, myself), but it's not wikipedia's place to determine whether it's bunk. all we need to do is give an accurate and balanced assessment of 'the state of the discipline', and that means we can't simply focus on scholarly detractors to the exclusion of a well-established body of scholarly proponents. do you see what I'm saying?

but yeah, you're right, it's time to let this discussion die off. I'll come back in a couple of days and see what people think about my suggestions below. maybe we can do some revisions then. --Ludwigs2 17:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

If I understand your list correctly, homeopathy has everything except perhaps the last half item: recognition from [most] other professional organizations. So the difference seems to be purely sociological. I believe that whether a field is accepted by other fields should be an indicator of whether it's a pseudoscience, not a defining criterion. Or take acupuncture, which seems to have everything except the second item on your list. Now try to remove acupuncture and see what happens. Don't even think of trying to remove homeopathy. --Hans Adler (talk) 07:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind another inclusion criteria: "Some subjects and methods are included because certain claims regarding them are pseudoscientific, even though the subjects themselves may be legitimate, or the methods themselves may have some efficacy, thus indicating it is the claims that are pseudoscientific, and not necessarily the subjects or methods." We include certain items of that type, and should always make sure that it is clear that it is the dubious claims that are the reason for inclusion. -- BullRangifer (talk) 13:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

@ Hans: I don't know of any major research universities or institutes that have homeopathy or acupuncture departments; psychoanalysis is taught at Oxford, if I remember correctly. there are certainly smaller institutions that teach both, which places them both a few steps above ufology. if you look at the issue carefully, this list could be handled with a nice sense towards nuance; as it stands, it looks like people have been slapping things in with a trowel.

@ Bull: let me point out the weight problem in that. you have a large number of scholarly psychoanalysts who would undoubtably say it's a valid field, and a handful of scholarly critics who think that some element of psychoanalysis is pseudoscientific. This is a conflict in reliable sources, and according to wp:weight we should present the majority opinion as the majority. that means that the opinion that it's pseudoscientific should be a minority view, maybe even such a small minority that it has no place on wikipedia. and yet, here this page is, epitomizing that viewpoint as the only available view. not good, that. --Ludwigs2 21:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with introducing nuances. PA being taught at Oxford doesn't really convince me of the difference. Homeopathy and acupuncture are certainly taught at some universities. I think they are all grey, not black or white. For homeopathy see [14] and Faculty of Homeopathy. For acupuncture I would expect it's a standard part of Chinese universities, like all TCM, and there is a lot of western research as well. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:05, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

We continue to do what we've always done: insist on WP:RS which we WP:V and describe with summaries which avoid WP:UNDUE while avoiding the interjection of personal WP:POV into the article mainspace. POV is fine on TalkPages because it helps us to debate and analyze the merits of various points of inclusion/ exclusion/ description/ etc. So far, i think this article which is a List of topics characterized as pseudoscience is following these basic principles. In order to avoid the worrisome "guilt by association" we might decide on ways to further divide the listings into subcategories and sub-sub-sections; but we do not insert our personal viewpoint, we only follow the empirical evidence as presented in our Reliable Sources. ~_{Teledildonix314}~^Talk~_4-1-1~ 01:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

sorry, but Wikipedia is Not a Turing Machine. I have a great respect for the rules, but I get tired of hearing people spell them out this way, as though (a) I were too dumb to know them, and (b) an obsessive adherence to rules ever solved a problem like this. the problem is that this page is one great big gaping POV hole, from the title (which implies that everything on this page is properly categorized as a pseudoscience, despite the disclaimer buried in the intro), to the Introduction (which essentially allows the inclusion of any field that has been criticized by almost anyone using almost any terminology that some random editor thinks qualifies as a reference to 'pseudoscience') to the complete lack of discrimination about inclusion, exclusion, ordering, and weight. I mean, are you seriously defending this page as it stands as a useful and meaningful addition to wikipedia? seriously??? --Ludwigs2 02:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, this stirring paragraph of yours has won me over, I cannot but agree with you that this list was ill conceived, disastrously midwifed and turned out a bit of a problem child. Unomi (talk) 02:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, i'm very sorry if you thought my mention of the policies would somehow imply dumbness, that was definitely not my intention. On the contrary, my mention of the basic policies was intended to remind everybody and nobody in particular about how it is easy to approach these controversies with established tools. I call them tools, i don't think obsessive adherence is necessary, i just thought they're useful. I am defending this page (though not necessarily exactly as it stands, because things can always be improved) because so far, as of the way i read it right now, each item included in the list comes with Sources to help us determine what to say and how to say it. And honestly, i don't think there's a big problem nor any need for tough controversy: all we have to do is look at the definition of science and the definition of pseudoscience, and then approach each item on the list with a comparison in mind. The comparison would boil down to: what is studied through the application of the scientific method, versus what is studied without adhering to scientific methodology and evidence-based reasoning. This does not seem difficult (to me). It doesn't even seem like it should be controversial, as far as i know, because we have some rather clear objective basis for making determinations about what is listed here. I'm very sorry if i didn't say this in a way which was complimentary to your intelligence, i honestly was just trying to answer in broad generalization. Many people come here and maybe they aren't contributors/ editors/ helpers, but they do read these pages, and i thought it was good to encourage all readers to look at these topics with our principled Pillars in mind. That wasn't meant as a slight to your wikipedia expertise, it was meant as a comment to a general audience. Please be patient with me, i am trying to communicate using only text on a computer screen, perhaps in real life you would see that i meant to be friendly and helpful. Thank you. ~_{Teledildonix314}~^Talk~_4-1-1~ 03:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

@ Teled: yes, you're right of course, and I did over-react. and as Unomi points out, I have a tendency towards impassioned oratory. I'm not against this page (which - conceptually at least - is interesting), and while I don't think that science is going to be quite as straight-forward to apply as you do, I agree with the principle of what you're saying. I just think that distinctions need to be made here. at least the following ones (based loosely of Feyerabend):

1. pure psuedoscience: Theories where the scientific evidence that exists derives from unsupportable methodology, or where convoluted and extensive rationalizations need to be used to connect the theory to what little good evidence does exist.
2. protoscience: Theories that seem to generate some results, but that haven't really been tested or aren't really testable given current technology (honestly, things like continental drift -pre plate tectonics - and psychoanalysis should be/should have been called protosciences rather than pseudosciences)
3. scientific mythology: things like UFOs and Crystal Healing which really make no pretense of being actually scientific (the vast majority of the 'science' in UFOlogy, for instance, seems to be efforts to prove political conspiracies, or that the subject matter actually exists, not anything about UFOs per se.)
4. curios: Crop Circles, Laundry Balls, the Shroud of Turin, the Tunguska Event - objects that might be the focus of scientific (or pseudoscientific) investigation, but aren't theories or methods in their own right.

the last group can go completely - maybe to a new page about mysterious objects and events - the other three need to be kept separate so as not to give the wrong impression. do you think it would work to restructure the list into three sections (or four, if you want to retain the curios here)?--Ludwigs2 05:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it depends what you classify as "evidence" and given that the whole of science is based upon a false premise that people can be "objective" when we know that by definition people, including the people who conduct "experiments" are by their very nature as human beings subjective then the fact that objectivity in isolation from subjectivity doesn't actually exist makes this whole discussion a bit of a waste of time and energy cos there are many people who lay no stock by the term "science" to begin with! Jacx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.16.90.186 (talk) 19:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Much of the comments above about the uneasiness we feel about listing Psychoanalyis alongside Crystal Healing and such hearkens back to the inherent POV problem with this article. But - true be told - this article is a collection of topics which simply have been characterized as a pseudoscience by some notable source (regardless of whether or not the general scientific community agrees with the characterization). Popper is indeed a notable source and thus anything which he had characterized as pseudoscience certainly merits inclusion in this list. If we were to exclude Popper's characterizations because they don't necessarily align with the views of the general scientific community, then we would have an WP:NPOV issue. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Ludwigs2 has removed psychoanalysis once more, saying "if Popper is not a sufficient source for Darwinism as pseudoscience, then he's not a sufficient source for psychoanalysis as pseudoscience". I don't agree. The problems with psychoanalysis that Popper criticised seem to me much more fundamental than those he criticised about Darwinism. (It's also a bit premature, since there is still a dispute about Darwin going on.) (I think Darwin is settled now. He doesn't belong here. --Hans Adler (talk) 06:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)) Moreover, it's not just Popper. I have reinstated the entry, adding a relatively recent New York Times book review that says psychoanalysis has always been controversial (feel free to replace it with a better source; this one has the advantage that the gist is clear from it's title: "Psychoanalysis: Is It Science or Is It Toast?") and, more importantly, a frequently cited article by University of Kent philosopher Frank Cioffi, who wrote a book "Freud and the question of pseudoscience". --Hans Adler (talk) 17:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

PS: Large parts of Cioffi's article are available on Google Books. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not the case that only one person (Popper) labeled PA as a PS and everyone else disagreed. Poppers allegation has been widely accepted and is uncontroversial. MaxPont (talk) 06:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

MaxPont :do you have sources for that? I know academia, and I know that (professionally, at least) academics are not given to idle speculation, and not likely to promote ideas they consider invalid. That leaves me wondering why psychoanalysis (broadly conceived) is present in in almost every university psychology department, and Freud's theories (psychoanalysis narrowly conceived) are still taught in universities (mostly as a prominent theoretical construct, but also - still - as a practical research/clinical program). I really have a hard time imagining scholars saying "well, yeah, this is pseudoscience: I'll get no where in my research if I pursue it, and it'll destroy my professional reputation and career, but what the heck!" can we use some common sense here, please? --Ludwigs2 15:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I suspect part of the problem is that experimental areas like psychoanalysis aren't necessarily PS. Experimentation is a proper part of the scientific method. Yet some aspects may be based on PS ideas, especially some of the earlier theories and practices, which may have been based more on personal theories and anecdotes than on valid research. I still think that some aspects of psychiatry would likely qualify for mention here. There must be a few more RS to back up such an entry. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Re Recently removed entries

This is, to my understanding, not a list of topics that necessarily are pseudoscience. But a list of topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience at some point. Consider for example Quackery#Notable_historical_persons_accused_of_quackery Lois Pasteur on the list of persons accused of quackery. See also Falsifiability of Evolution, which seems to provide sources pointing to Popper never truly retracting his opinion. That is of course in any event besides the point that he had at some point characterized as 'pseudoscience' in the first place. Unomi (talk) 13:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Um, no. First off, this is not properly a list of topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience by somebody at some point in time for all of history, but rather is properly presented as a list of topics that are characterized a pseudoscience in light of current, or at least reasonably contemporary scientific method. But whether or not this view of the proper scope of this list is agreed to be an appropriate bound, I've removed Darwinism. Karl Popper said in 1976 that it failed his falisifiablity criterion for scientific method. About a year later he publicly recanted after receiving feedback from scientists more familiar with evolutionary theory than he was, and repeated his self-correction publicly on several occasions. See, e.g., "Science and Pseudo-science" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online, which gives some sources about Popper's little gaffe. ... Kenosis (talk) 14:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

There is also the discussion above concerning this. I currently support the removal of Darwinism (which isn't a well defined term anyway) Verbal chat 14:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Um, yes. First off, the inclusion criteria that allow darwinism are here: 'Besides explicitly using the word "pseudoscience", some may also have used synonyms that help to explain why they consider a topic to be pseudoscientific. The existence of such expressed opinions suffices for inclusion in this list, and therefore inclusion does not necessarily indicate that any given entry is in fact pseudoscience.' If you wish to add a qualifier or cogent note on the entry please do so. By all means state how Popper rephrased his statement. Stop removing content which can be improved by editing. Unomi (talk) 15:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Unomi, I left a note above, in the talk section on "Darwinism", why its inclusion is in direct violation of all three of WP's core content policies. Please endeavor to reasonably conform to these well established basic WP editorial policies. Thanks. ... Kenosis (talk) 15:36, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Please stop edit warring to reintroduce this badly written and unsupported paragraph. The source you've added doesn't support your above assertion, and as pointed out above, your reasoning is unpersuasive. If you wish to present sources on this talk page as required by WP:TALK together with proposals for a rewrite, that can be considered, but such sources must fully support the assertion that reliable sources have considered the topic to be pseudoscience. . dave souza, talk 15:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Um, Unomi, Conservapedia is not a reliable source. Guettarda (talk) 15:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not claiming that Conservapedia is a reliable source, I am claiming that they have sources that seem to support their statements. The paragraph may be poorly written, I have invited you to improve it, but it is not unsupported, that is the whole point of that little number at the end of the text. Either the basis of this whole article is at risk or Darwinism is a valid entry. Unomi (talk) 16:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

False dichotomy. The basis of this article is not at risk. Verbal chat 16:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Not at all, the article is under attack on the basis of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, Popper may have rephrased what he said, yet in the 1982 edition of the same book, (3 years after his supposed retraction) the statement still stood. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unomi (talk • contribs) 16:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Kenosis above writes: First off, this is not properly a list of topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience by somebody at some point in time for all of history, but rather is properly presented as a list of topics that are characterized a pseudoscience in light of current, or at least reasonably contemporary scientific method.

I disagree with this statement on the grounds of NPOV. This is a list of topics which have been characterized as pseudoscience by some notable person or group at some point in time for all of history. This is not a list of topics that are characterized as a pseudoscience in light of current, or at least reasonably contemporary scientific method. If the later was the case, this article would simply be titled "List of pseudosciences" and - per WP:PSCI - we would only be including items which are either obvious pseuodsciences or are generally considered pseudosciences by the general scientific community. However, this is not such a list. This is a list of topics which have been characterized as pseudosciences. A characterization is a viewpoint and the inclusion criteria of viewpoints must adhere to NPOV. This means that we cannot pick-and-choose which viewpoints we like and which ones we don't. If it is a significant viewpoint, we must include it. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 17:36, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm reasonably OK with this position too, if it turns out to be the consensus position on the scope of the list. But as I also said, I believe editors should attempt to be collectively clearer, i.e. to arrive at some kind of consensus about what the scope of the list is in this regard. So I guess the issue is, roughly: Is the phrase "characterized as" equivalent to "which are characterized as" (a present-tense passive-voice adjectival clause)? or equivalent to "which have been characterized as" (a present perfect passive-voice adjectival clause)? or some variation thereof? ... Kenosis (talk) 18:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I would estimate that it would be endlessly debated about when passive-voice adjectival ends and when present-tense passive-voice adjectival begins. (Or do I have that backwards?) I think that since we are going with a list of items which have been characterized as pseudoscience (rather than a list of items which are pseudoscience) that we should create a list as replete as the sources allows. Let's tell the whole story of this characterization. If an item was once characterized as pseudoscience by a notable source but then the same source later recanted the characterization, let's talk about that. Or if another notable source disagrees with the characterization, let's include that. This way, we are expressing every significant POV (in accordance to WP:WEIGHT of course) and in the end we will have a robust and informative article about the characterization being applied to a host of topics.

The only other viable option is to turn this simply into a "List of pseudosciences" and then only include items which meet WP:PSCI's "obvious" and "generally considered" parameters. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It is only rationale to consider this a list of topics "what have been characterized as" as there is no way to properly source whether something is "currently characterized as"! or would we have to delete all sources older than 6 months ago? I agree that if a source "recanted the characterization" we should talk about that. as levine2112 says we could also rename the list again 70.71.22.45 (talk) 21:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll admit that is funny, and also quite correct. The issue that brought this up had to do with some disagreement over whether to include two theories, specifically meteorites and continental drift, that have long been considered scientific (or "real" phenomena if you prefer) by the scientific community. The part where these two theories that were once characterized as pseudoscience have since come into wide acceptance is quite verifiable. What the appropriate editorial solution is, I haven't the foggiest idea. ... Kenosis (talk) 21:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Are we still having this discussion? The discussion at #Potential retitle explicitly rejected changing the inclusion criteria. We just did a nice consensus-based tweak-up of the lead and inclusion criteria, which left them substantially the same. This leaves us, as always (since I have been paying attention to this article, at least) and as I mention above, with a list based on statements published in sources "generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand". Where is the problem with this? - Eldereft (cont.) 21:36, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

which problem would you like to start with - the one where editors pick and choose whether a source will be used based on how they feel about the topic he's discussing, or the one where the page has become a ramshackle mess of different things, whose only underlying commonality is that they are 'things skeptics are skeptical about'. as I said before, I'm annoyed that editors have pushed psychoanalysis onto this page on the grounds that Popper listed it as a pseudoscience (when in fact Popper could only have been talking about classic Freudian talk-therapy - modern psychoanalysis is a much broader field, and a well-respected one), and that they dump it in willy-nilly with crystal healing, laundry balls, the shroud of turin, and other massive brain occlusions. that's just plain moronic. and then people get all up in arms when I use the EXACT SAME criteria to add a topic they happen to like.

If this page is not going to have a decent set of criteria, then it ought to at least apply its crappy criteria objectively and uniformly, but it doesn't even manage to do that.

frankly, I don't really have a lot of interest in this page, but I see no reason for the massive association fallacy on it to continue. now I would happily go through and restructure it more meaningfully (per what I wrote below), but (as you and I both know) if I try to do that I'm going to run into a whole bunch of petty reverts from a whole bunch of editors who won't even take the time to discuss the matter, and I don't have enough interest in this list to put myself through that. I'd just as soon see it deleted as unencyclopedic rubbish. I mean, I'm willing to give it a go, but I'm not going to run the gauntlet on this. so how would you like me to proceed? --Ludwigs2 22:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

@Eldereft. Per your point - "generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand" - remember that the subject at hand is not pseudoscience but rather the characterization of such. The sources which we choose should be trustworthy/authoritative in presenting the sources characterization. I think there might be confusion here. I think some editors only want to include sources which are generally regarded as trustworthy/authoritative with regards to pseudoscience. If that were the case, this article would only include items which are definitively pseudoscientific per the scientific community in general; for if a source is truly trustworthy/authoritative with regards to pseudoscience, then it speaks for scientific community in general. If it isn't, then the source is only presenting its opinion (or in this case, characterization). And if we are going to allow characterizations made by sources which don't represent the scientific community in general but kind of slant towards that way, then we also have to include characterizations made by sources which slant the other way. Essentially, this could be a black-and-white article where we only present items which are definitively pseuodscience per the scientific community in general. But once we allow "characterizations" in this article, it ceases to be black-and-white, but rather a range of gray. And when we allow some notable gray and not some other notable gray, then this article will suffer of NPOV violations. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you are making a clear point Levine2112. Trying to paraphrase your argument, you say that reliable sources should be used, but that some editors only want to use reliable sources that are authoritative voices regarding pseudoscientific concepts. Such authoritative sources speak for the consensus in the scientific community. However then you go one to say that these sources are themselves pseudoscientific because they are authorities on pseudoscience. That is a very careless argument. Authorities in science which make comments on pseudoscience are not pseudoscientific themselves. Neither are authorities which specialize in discussing pseudoscience provided they stick to scientific consensus.

Also the presence of sources which support one viewpoint does not mean that contrasting viewpoint sources are needed if the contrasting sources are fringe science. See Fringe theories#Parity of sources. Sifaka ^talk 03:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Sifaka, I think you're misrepresenting Levine's point, as well as missing the point a bit yourself. there is a drastic - and I suspect intentional - confusion on this page between the 'characterization' of pseudoscience, and the 'fact' of it. the whole point of this page is to give the impression that topics A, B, C, and etc. are pseudoscientific, without having to provide any sources to the effect that they actually are pseudoscientific. if this page is in in fact simply about the 'characterization' of pseudoscience, it should be deleted immediately: any scientist can make an off the cuff assertion that something is pseudoscience, but in the scientific world that wouldn't qualify as a scientific statement without further analysis. if it's about something more substantive, then greater care needs to be taken to make sure that the characterization is more than a mere opinion.

I'll add, are you seriously calling psychoanalysis a 'fringe science'? if you're not, your last statement is irrelevant to the conversation; if you are, please don't waste our time with obvious tiny-minority POVs. Psychoanalysis may have a ton of flaws, but it is not (by any stretch of anyone's imagination) a fringe science. --Ludwigs2 03:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe the core of Ludwigs2's argument is correct. This article should be about what is actually pseudoscience, not what some lone crank considers pseudoscience. I have not read through the old talk yet so I don't know specifics of the history here but this seems to already be covered in the the arbitration ruling. Unfortunately, it appears that Ludwigs2 criteria for pseudoscience differ from the ruling and from what the consensus of scientists would say. Of course, as I've said, I have not been over all of the old talk yet so I may be incorrect in what Ludwigs2's stances have really been and what has actually happened on this article. —Fiziker ^t c 04:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Fiziker, just to clarify: I don't think this is about cranks, necessarily - some very reputable scientists have used the term. this is more about the difference between a speculative opinion and a scientific assertion. I've seen too many instances (here and elsewhere) of editors saying 'So-&-so said that X was a pseudoscience; and because so-&-so said it, we can assert that the entire scientific community believes it; and because the entire scientific community believes it, we can assert that is factually is pseudoscience'. it's just bad, inflated logic. even with a very notable figure (like Popper) a claim that something is pseudoscience is based within an analytic framework, and analytic frameworks are theoretical constructions which are hotly contested in the current state of the philosophy of science. Popper's theory (in particular) is largely considered outmoded - no one who seriously studies these things talks about falsification as a viable paradigm anymore. and no, I don't really have a different criteria for pseudoscience than that presented in the ArbCom rulings; what I have is a sensible interpretation of the ArbCom rulings which annoys people who don't want to be sensible about this issue. or so it seems to me... --Ludwigs2 04:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be asserting that if the scientific community comes to a consensus that something is a pseudoscience that is not enough for inclusion here as a pseudoscience. However, this is essentially what defines a pseudoscience. More specifically a consensus is formed based on evidence whether or not something is true and then if people continue to advanced failed arguments and evidence they are practicing pseudoscience. There is therefore no better why of deciding on pseudoscience than by looking at the scientific consensus of whether someone is advocating a tenable position or not. —Fiziker ^t c 16:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

first off, 'pseudoscience' is not a scientific term. there are no analytic criteria for whether something is pseudoscience, and there is no generally accept research paradigm for testing whether or not something is pseudoscientific. pseudoscience is a colloquial term used to imply where some subject is being pursued with a persistent disregard for current scientific methodology and evidence. saying something is pseudoscientific is pretty much like saying something is pornographic - obvious in extreme cases, but with a large gray area (to use Levine's term) which is subject to personal opinion. the scientific community (as a community of scientists) does not have an opinion (much less a consensus) about pseudoscience, anymore than they have a scientific opinion about Santa Claus. Skeptics worry about pseudoscience; scientists don't.

second... science is filled with perfectly valid theories and practices which have failed, and scientists will often examine failed theories to see if there's something useful in them. if you think scientists have some sort of uniform opinion about anything you are sadly mistaken. the 'community of scientists' is a bunch of people playing the same kind of political games that everyone else in the world plays, except they are playing by a very restrictive set of rules. e.g., Scientist A wants to be respected by others, so he's constantly looking for some finding that will mark him as a great scientist; s/he will use the current methodology, create a new one, revive a dead one, or whatever is needed to do that, so long as he can do it in a way that convinces other researchers and makes him look good (which means lots of evidence). science is a nasty, cut-throat business, which works primarily because everyone puts so much effort into destroying each others' work that what survives has got to be functional. If there was a scientist out there who could make 'crystal healing' work he'd publish it in a heartbeat and make a huge name for himself, and many scientists have lost their reputations because they published against some theory that later became accepted. a scientist saying that something is or isn't pseudoscientific is irrelevant; what matters is if the theory continues to be a functional research paradigm. 'Truth' has nothing to do with it; what matters is if the theory can be used functionally. ok? --Ludwigs2 21:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

You are right in that pseudoscience is not a term used in science; it is a term used in the philosophy of science. You are also right that the scientific community does not explicitly rule on what is pseudoscience, but this is a point that I made above. The scientific community comes to a consensus on what is most likely to be true. Of course the demarcation problem is called a problem for a reason but at least one sufficient criterion for pseudoscience is the continued advocacy of a theory in spite of evidence. The fact that there is a consensus provides a clear way of determining most pseudoscience. —Fiziker ^t c 22:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

"This article should be about what is actually pseudoscience, not what some lone crank considers pseudoscience" - That's what I've been trying to say. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. The reason I challenged Levine's argument is because I thought it made no sense. I hope Levine can explain what he was trying to say because to me Levine seemed to be saying that authorities on pseudoscience are pseudoscientific themselves.

Regarding, "Also the presence of sources which support one viewpoint does not mean that contrasting viewpoint sources are needed if the contrasting sources are fringe science. See Fringe theories#Parity of sources," I was responding to Levine's assertion that "when we allow some notable gray and not some other notable gray, then this article will suffer of NPOV violations." Just because a source is notable doesn't mean it's up to snuff. It also has to pass the parity test, i.e. be considered respectable among its peers. A single notable source advocating a fringe viewpoint still isn't enough to stand up to an avalanche of more noteworthy respectable sources. Finally, I'm definitely not saying psychoanalysis is a fringe science. I think the opposite. I'm confused about how you came to this conclusion. Sifaka ^talk 05:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

ah, no... sorry. I'm the one who's confused. I misread, and thought you were saying something different. it's hard to keep different arguments from getting tangled up in these discussions. I am a little leery, though, of that 'up-to-snuff' argument. as long as it's restricted to the the positions representativeness in reliable sources, all's well and good, but my experience is that that argument quickly devolves into an assessment of the competence of the source, rather than the prevalence of the opinion. I've actually heard that argument used to dismiss academic citations (to books and articles by PhDs): people will say 'well, that scholar seems to be defending an unacceptable position, so therefore that scholar isn't really a reliable source'. circular reasoning to the nth degree... --Ludwigs2 05:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

@Sifaka - As you suspected, you misunderstood what I wrote; probably because my language wasn't clear. I definitely wasn't calling any sources "pseudoscientific". I was saying that if a source is regarded as trustworthy/authoritative in terms of definitively naming topics which are and aren't pseudoscience (a reliable source for describing what is and what isn't pseudoscience), then in terms of Wikipedia these sources satisy WP:PSCI and we can use them to definitively describe a topic as pseudoscientific. This means that these sources represent the general consideration of the scientific community. I would imagine that these sources include highly-regarded scientific journals and various academies of science. If all we were using in this article were these kinds of sources, then we would not merely be listing items that have been "characterized" as pseudoscience, but rather listing items that are pseudoscience. There would be no need for "characterized" in the title of this list, because per PSCI, we can definitively label items as "pseudoscience" if the sources show that the item is generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community. We could call this "List of pseudosciences" where either an item is clearly pseudoscience and it is included or it is not clearly pseudoscience and it is not included. Either we have sources which verify that the scientific community generally considers a topic pseudoscience or we do not; and that determines whether we would include it in such a list or not. It would be a yes or a no situation - or as I say above - it would be a black-or-white situation. Does that make sense?

Now where does the "grey" come in? Grey comes in when this article ceases being a "List of pseudosciences" and instead is a "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience". This is what we are currently working with - a list with grey inclusionary criteria. For instead of relying on sources which satisfy PSCI and can be used to definitively call something pseudoscience, we allow for merely notable sources which have in some way, shape, or form characterized an item as pseudoscience. So, in terms of WP:RS, our focus has shifted from the article which I described in the paragraph above. We are no longer just looking for sources which are regarded as trustworthy/authoritative in terms of definitively naming topics which are and aren't pseudoscience, but rather just looking for notable sources which are regarded as trustworthy/authoritative in terms of characterizing topics as pseudoscience. Characterize, in terms of the inclusion criteria in the lead of this article, is weaker than definitively labelling something. The lead even states that some of the items included in this list are not necessarily pseudoscientific, but merely have been characterized as such by some notable source. So, in fact, source reliability comes down to whether or not the source is trustworthy at representing the characterization reliably. Well, this could be nearly any notable source which presents such a characterization. No longer are we just relying on highly-regarded scientific journals and various academies of science, but rather we are open to including skeptic groups, notable academics and researchers, etc. So now we are not definitively labelling anything pseudoscience. It's not a yes or no situation. It's not black-or-white. The list, the inclusion criteria, and the types of sources allow for grey. Does that make sense?

Above, I said, "When we allow some notable gray and not some other notable gray, then this article will suffer of NPOV violations." What I meant was that we can't pick-and-choose which notable sources we want to use and which ones we don't based on the merits of which topics the sources are characterizing as pseudoscience. Despite this, I think that is exactly what is happening right now. Because most of us here - myself included - would agree that psychoanalysis or Darwinism is not pseudoscientific, we are reluctant to allow their inclusion in this list regardless of whether or not we have notable sources asserting such a characterization. Some of us seem to be making a judgment based on our own views of what is and what isn't pseudoscience, and we feel that it is wrong to mention psychoanalysis in the same breath as phrenology. But when we act like this - when we disallow based on our own views - then we have an NPOV problem on our hands. Does that make sense?

What we have to remember is that this is not a list of pseudosciences, but rather a collection of topics which have been characterized as pseudoscience by some notable source. Being included in this list means not that the item is pseudoscientific, but rather that it has the unique distinction of having been called pseudoscientific by some notable source. I think with proper attribution and context (historical, academic, etc.), we can include items which even in our heart of hearts know are not pseudoscientific and there won't be any NPOV problems with this article. But until we are all open to that, I'm afraid that this article will have NPOV issues.

I hope my verbosity has cleared up my point and has not obscured it even more. Please feel free to pick everything I say apart for analysis and I'd be happy to go over it with you even further. :-) -- Levine2112 ^discuss 16:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Levine: first off, well said. however, it's precisely this 'gray area' that I'm objecting to, at least with out some careful efforts to structure and delineate the material. it's still entirely a matter of editors' opinions. I mean, this 'gray area' can be interpreted in several ways:

• things that have been 'historically' characterized as pseudoscience (includes psychoanalysis, darwinism, continental drift, quantum mechanics and string theory, and a whole lot of currently valid fields of investigation, all equal).
• things that have been 'analytically' characterized as pseudoscience (which excludes a few of the above, but calls for an explanation of the analysis, and a careful negotiation of different levels of the issue)
• things that have been 'properly' characterized as pseudoscience (which excludes all of the established scientific disciplines, including psychoanalysis)
• things that have been 'colloquially' characterized as pseudoscience (which is where you get entires like 'laundry balls', 'crystal healing', 'the shroud of turin', and etc, which really aren't pseudosciences at all - they are just objects of 'fanciful' speculation).

it is the blatant disregard for the boundaries between these interpretations that annoys me. when one editor comes along and says 'psychoanalysis belongs on the list because a notable figure said it was pseudoscience (for given analytical reasons)' and another editor comes along and says 'crystal healing belongs on the list because everyone knows that silliness is pseudoscience (a colloquial reason which can probably be sourced)' and a reader comes along and thinks 'psychoanalysis and crystal healing are both on this list, so they must be basically the same', we have just massively misinformed the reader. the best we can hope for in that situation is that the reader is smart enough to recognize that we've massively misinformed them, but is an encyclopedia supposed to count on the reader to recognize its flaws? do you see what I'm getting at here? --Ludwigs2 17:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely see what you are getting at and agree with you fully. But where and how do we draw the line? We can't just allow some grey and disallow others, because "grey" equals "viewpoints" (i.e. It is the viewpoint of the Society of Foo Skeptics that foo is pseudoscience. Or Dr. Somewhat Notable has the unique viewpoint that foo is pseudoscience.) We can't allow some characterizations made by one kind of notable source but disallow other characterizations made by another kind of notable source. This is a blatant breach of NPOV. The inclusion criteria allows for grey and - per NPOV - all significant grey can and should be included in this list article.

Now then, if that is a problem for us - if we cannot comply with NPOV - then I suggest (as I have often suggested) that this article becomes the very definitive "List of pseudosciences" and adheres strictly to the guidelines of WP:PSCI (part of NPOV); whereas we would only be able to include items which have been deemed pseudosciences per the general opinion of the scientific community. This would be a completely useful list, rather than the mess we are working on now! My guess as to why we haven't adopted this obvious and logical solution is that some editors want so badly to associate certain non-pseudoscientific topics with pseudoscience, that they are willing to throw NPOV and logic out the window just for the satisfaction of including such topics in this muddled and unencyclopaedic list. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 17:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this list should become List of pseudosciences and use WP:PSCI but note that there will always be grey: you cannot avoid it. There is no demarcation between pseudoscience so while you can clearly distinguish between physics and cryptozoology, you will still have have boundary issues. —Fiziker ^t c 21:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. There will always be grey. But at least as a "List of pseudosciences" using WP:PSCI, it will be the exact same grey which we deal with at Category:Pseudoscience and on the individual article level - articles for those topics which reside in the grey amongst pseudo-, proto-, and fringe science. This means that if there is a consensus to categorize a topic in Category:Pseudoscience, then that same consensus could be applied to include the topic in "List of pseudosciences". Seems like a win to me. It won't solve all the problems, but it would at least minimize them. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. —Fiziker ^t c 22:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Clarification of my position on this: The inclusion criteria on this list should conform to WP:PSCI. I fully support that. However, I do not see why Levine2112, Ludwigs2, and Unomi think that there is a problem with WP:PSCI as is. While I know there are pseudosciences absent from this list, I didn't not see anything that doesn't fall under the first two three categories of the policy. —Fiziker ^t c 09:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Fiziker, the third line of Wikipedia:PSCI#Pseudoscience_and_related_fringe_theories reads:"Questionable science: "Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized." adding psychoanalysis on this page is an end-run around that restriction, with people wikilawyering it in on the grounds that we're not characterizing it as pseudoscience by pointing out that people characterize it as pseudoscience. please use your Brain Gym before trying to work through that logic. --Ludwigs2 14:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

You are reading "psychoanalysis should not be generally characterized as pseudoscience", which is in the text you cited. I am reading "psychoanalysis may contain information to the effect that it has been alleged to be pseudoscience", which is also in the text you cited. (Arbcom were obviously thinking of the PA article, which uncontroversially has this information.) From my side there is no gaming involved. I think the PA entry with my extensions makes it clear that it's not as simple as PA being a PS. If you can make it even clearer, go ahead. I guess you are in a better position than me to find the necessary sources. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I would support placing topics that fall under the third category in a separate section that is clearly stated to contain these third category items. Based on the discussion to rename this article, it doesn't seem like this would have much support. However, I don't see this being a major problem in comparison to other positions because they still need to make similar delineations. —Fiziker ^t c 18:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that would be a distinct improvement. I could quibble, but I can always quibble, so I'll resist. --Ludwigs2 22:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. Unomi (talk) 23:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

There was a very broad consensus to change the article title which expanded the inclusion critieria. See Talk:List of pseudoscientific theories/Archive 12. QuackGuru (talk) 02:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed there was a broad consensus, but to be more precise, it was to make the title NPOV and to bring it into harmony with the existing inclusion criteria and existing contents. The title was the only problem. Now there is harmony between all three, and with the exception of pointy attempts to sabotage and undermine the list with some strange inclusions, it's a much better list. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The title was not the only problem. The problem was and is that this list does not serve as an explanation of the philosophical concept of a pseudoscience, but as a coatrack for fringe-bashing. This is problematic because fringe-bashing tends to concentrate on those cases which are contentious because they are borderline.

And pray tell, if this list is to list exactly the members of the pseudoscience category, what is its purpose? --Hans Adler (talk) 12:36, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

@ Hans: the point here is that anyreasonable and definable criteria for inclusion will be better than the current 'open season' situation. if you don't agree with this particular change, ok. but what wsould you suggest for better criteria?

@ QG and BR: consensus can change, and does, and in a case like this, should. --Ludwigs2 14:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree that we have a choice: either (1) include all reliably-sourced categorizations, including historical ones (with a note as to the change in attitude) and single-sourced ones, again with a note when the view is contrary to an overwhelming scientific consensus (Darwinism). Or (2) go back to the PSCI criteria and rename the article. I'm not happy about (2), as I was part of the consensus that led to the present solution. But I do expect that we will execute option (1) even-handedly; no, you won't be happy to see your favorite topic listed here. But if it's been labeled pseudoscience, then it belongs in the article titled List of topics characterized as pseudoscience.

For Popper and Darwinism: the history of the categorization belongs here under the current title: Popper wrote X, said Y about his own categorization, then left it in later editions anyway. Pace Popper. hgilbert (talk) 17:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Or, better yet, we might consider following WP:RS and require that our sources be "generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand" (emphasis in original), with a little WP:WEIGHT thrown in to cover disagreement among sources. Our inclusion criteria define this article, not the title (which was recently changed with explicit assurances that people would not immediately set in with pointed and disruptive additions). For the record, I would also prefer that we drop psychoanalysis, but it is enough of a grey area that I can follow whatever consensus develops.

With that out of the way, would anyone object to closing this thread, as it seems to be going nowhere? We already know that many editors who hang out here are capable of collectively generating many megabytes of pointless argumentation (check my contribution history to this talkpage for an example). Specific suggestions for improving the list, the inclusion criteria, or the title may be mooted in new sections below. - Eldereft (cont.) 20:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Archive

Can someone please archive the talk page? This is WAY too long, I would do it myself, but I have no idea how. --Pstanton (talk) 00:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Relocated north of the references by Sifaka ^talk 02:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Would anybody mind if I set up automatic archiving from MiszaBot? - Eldereft (cont.) 06:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me Unomi (talk) 12:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Timer is set to three weeks; bot will leave at least five threads on the page, and will not activate for only one thread; archive size is 250K. Any of these parameters may be tweaked to reasonable values without discussion unless someone cares deeply about any of them. Eldereft (cont.)

Thanks Eldereft. ... Kenosis (talk) 16:36, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that the archives have references in them but because the archives did not include reflists no one could see them so I have now included them on all archives that have references in them. Unfortunately it appears that MiszaBot doesn't have the ability to include a references section at the bottom of an archive, so this will still need to be done manually. —Fiziker ^t c 06:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

AfD - 3rd nomination

Also, a few editors have mentioned at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of topics characterized as pseudoscience (3rd nomination) that it was never mentioned here that Ludwigs2 has nominated this list for deletion. Please discuss there. - Eldereft (cont.) 16:17, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Tunguska event

That this event happened is not in dispute. Listing it here alongside UFOs gives the reader the false impression that that is indeed in dispute. 72.47.38.205 (talk) 21:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I'll check the entry in Williams' (ed.) Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience (the citation given for this entry in the list) when I have an opportunity. Many entries in this publication are presented not because they've been alleged to be pseudoscientific, but in many cases because some of the theories proposed for certain previously unexplained phenomena turned out to be quite simply incorrect -- sometimes seemingly farfetched or even humorous in retrospect, but not necessarily pseudoscientific. ... Kenosis (talk) 01:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I just updated the description to state event happened, caused by, other theories. If anyone can get the initial sentence to start with the target article to match the format of the rest of the entries while still maintaining natural sentence structure and flow, please do so. - 2/0(cont.) 19:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Mormonism

I just removed a new entry on Mormonism. The entry was unsourced and so should definitely be removed, but this sort of entry I do not think belongs on the list at all. If anyone would like to discuss this, please do so here. - 2/0 (cont.) 23:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced = remove it. However, if a reliable source can be found to back up the claims in the text, I have no problem with it be readded. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 04:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point - proper sourcing obviously outweighs whatever personal biases I may have. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Mormonism itself doesn't belong on this list because it's a religion rather than an "aspiring science." Specific pseudo-scientific claims that some varieties of Mormonism are/were(?) promoting (see Archaeology and the Book of Mormon) can probably go on this page, but they should be listed as something like "History of the Americas according to the Book of Mormon" or whatever the official name for this "science" is (New World Archeology?). Putting "Mormonism" as the section title would be like putting "Christianity" or "Protestantism" as the header for creation science instead of "Creation Science". Sifaka ^talk 21:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

We don't limit this page to just "aspiring science". Anything which has been characterized as a pseudoscience by some notable source is fair game. (That is the inherent and unfortunate weakness of this list article.) That said, the more specific we can be with what we include, the better. IOW, don't throw the baby out with the pseudoscientific bath water. If just a portion of some concept has been characterized as pseudoscience by a notable source, then try to include only that portion rather than misrepresenting that the entire concept has been characterized as a pseudoscience. Make sense? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 22:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, when I said "aspiring science", I meant "an activity resembling science but based on fallacious assumptions" which is aspiring to become credible and considered scientific despite serious methodological, conceptual, etc problems.

IOW, don't throw the baby out with the pseudoscientific bath water. If just a portion of some concept has been characterized as pseudoscience by a notable source, then try to include only that portion rather than misrepresenting that the entire concept has been characterized as a pseudoscience. Make sense? - I was never confused in the first place. That's exactly what I was saying when I said Mormonism was a no-go, but "LDS New World Archeology" (that's probably not a good name for it but I'm going to use it for the rest of this response) definitely satisfies inclusion criteria. Do note that when I say "LDS New World Archeology", I'm talking about some study cherry-picking or just plain bad science used to try to support the historical accounts given in the Book of Mormon. I'm getting this information from Archaeology and the Book of Mormon#LDS efforts to establish Book of Mormon archaeology and Genetics and the Book of Mormon. Just in case it isn't clear I'm not the person who added Mormonism in the first place.

With regards to Anything which has been characterized as a pseudoscience by some notable source is fair game. - I disagree with this, but this is more of an issue about what I personally think the scope of this article should be in general than anything to do with Mormonism. (Don't take this as a statement that I am against the inclusion of a "LDS New World Archeology" section. I absolutely think "LDS New World Archeology" as I defined it qualifies as pseudoscience.) I believe this article's scope should be only topics that are (or were for the "previously disputed natural phenomina" section) "Obvious pseudoscience" and "Generally considered pseudoscience" according to the arbitration rulings. I'd rather not argue about what the scope of the article should be in this talk page section though since this section is about Mormonism. If you want to discuss what the scope of the article ought to be, please start another section. Sifaka ^talk 23:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you on what the scope of this article should be. Unfortunately, that is not what the scope of the article is. The scope as it stands is we may include anything which has been characterized as a pseudoscience by a notable source. But I digress as well. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

yawn... article title... again

(Putting in a separate section but referring to levine et al's comments above) Yes, this is turning into a tedious discussion. But I thought last time we discussed changing it we were close to a consensus for changing the title? I've been watching developments (though I haven't done much with the article, so don't want to intrude) and it really seems like it would solve (or an least reduce) many of the problems with the inclusion criteria if we changed the title. Most of the comments since I commented on this issue last time have been in favour. Time somebody actually moved it? (I'm probably not going to though.) CheesyBiscuit (talk) 16:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, maybe it's worth starting a new page - 'list of pseudosciences' - we can have both, as they're separate things. CheesyBiscuit (talk) 16:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I do not think we were, nor have I seen any new arguments in a long while. We actually do (and should) follow WP:Verifiability with our inclusion criteria by only allowing sources reliable to the topic at hand, not just any old statement by whatever notable body. If any specific entries are problematic, please start a new section below. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The last archive (13), near the bottom. How about starting a new page that is just 'pseudoscientific topics'? As a new, separate page, that is. CheesyBiscuit (talk) 13:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I find it extremely hard to take this suggestion seriously. The present title was a compromise, because the problem of demarcation between science and pseudoscience is a famously hard one and the purpose of this list is (or rather: should be) to illustrate this with examples. A second list that simply duplicates Category:Pseudoscience would be useless. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

What, actually, is the point of this article? Is it - as you say - to provide only a few examples, or is it intended as a comprehensive list of topics that meet the inclusion criteria? The introduction indicates the latter, but that is going to become looooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg... CheesyBiscuit (talk) 13:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Another candidate

Here is a good candidate. It looks like an exemplar pseudoscience

http://knol.google.com/k/joe-greenfield/neurolinguistic-programming/2j6nlcky7q5vo/2#

Lee Shiao Ming (talk) 05:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Neuro-linguistic programming is in category Pseudoscience, and should be described here. That article has been the subject of multiple mediations and has been before the Arbitration committee at least once. Please be especially careful to use and represent with scrupulous fairness reliable sources (general comment, I have not yet perused the above knol). - 2/0 (cont.) 19:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Handwriting

Graphology is only superficially related to forensic document examination, which also examines handwriting.

Forensic document examination is not psuedoscience. This section should be worded more carefully, to make this clear. 72.47.38.205 (talk) 23:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

The quote says that graphology isn't forensic document examination, and it is graphology that is called a PS. Verbal chat 06:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Promissory materialism

• • Promissory materialism is a term coined by the philosopher of science Karl Popper to describe theories of consciousness that claim an exclusively biological basis for phenomena of consciousness. Such theories deny any independent existence of consciousness, considering this to be an effect of biological brain functions. Popper considered such theories to be based at present essentially wholly on promises of future discoveries rather than any extant scientific work and suggested that they would remain untestable by any empirical measures in the future, as such tests could at best establish parallelisms of consciousness and biological brain function. He decried the refusal of promoters of the theories to consider any alternatives to materialism. The theories have been called "humbug" sustained by "elaborate evasions" "superstition" "antiscientific," "science turned upside down," "in conflict with biological evolution" and a belief or faith without evidence.

Removing new section from article for discussion:

* Promissory materialism is a term coined by the philosopher of science Karl Popper to describe theories of consciousness that claim an exclusively biological basis for phenomena of consciousness. Such theories deny any independent existence of consciousness, considering this to be an effect of biological brain functions. Popper considered such theories to be based at present essentially wholly on promises of future discoveries rather than any extant scientific work and suggested that they would remain untestable by any empirical measures in the future, as such tests could at best establish parallelisms of consciousness and biological brain function. Popper compared these theories to "humbug" sustained by "elaborate evasions" and decried their refusal to consider any alternatives to materialism.

This seems to me more a critique of some forms of materialist philosophy than an example of pseudoscience falling in the remit of this article. Although Popper and Eccles are fairly harsh on the idea, I cannot find where they describe it as pseudoscience in fact, synonym, or effect. If there are more references from sources reliable to make the distinction showing that this is a notable idea, we can add this back in. - 2/0 (cont.) 23:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

He is critiquing claims similar, in their context, to quantum mysticism in the context of modern physics. Whether they are philosophical or not, they make scientific claims (here, that consciousness is reducible to biological events) and thus give themselves the appearance of science. Popper's whole point is that empirical evidence has never been provided for the purportedly scientific claims being made, "nor have any serious suggestions been made how this could be done".

Popper calls the result "humbug," sustained by "elaborate evasions" and writes that it puts its own claims forward as scientific, to be one day validated by the march of science, but without any present evidence. Either this explicit terminology or this description are sufficient to classify it here; both together are quite clear. One reliable source - and this is a very reliable source - has sufficed for other topics here; shall we remove all topics for which only one source exists or allow these? I hope we are not proposing a double standard. hgilbert (talk) 08:06, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

In any case, I've restored the passage with supporting sources, as requested. hgilbert (talk) 08:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

If not being able to disprove a spiritual element to something makes assuming natural causation pseudoscientific, then every field of science is pseudoscientific. This is clear WP:SYNTH based on a few opinions. Jefffire (talk) 16:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Jeffire: you removed this section with the edit summary, "Popper not liking something doesn't make it pseudoscientific." No, it doesn't. Neither does anyone characterizing anything. But see the title of this page; this is a list of topics that have been so characterized. PM is clearly characterized as pseudoscience, and by no means just by Popper. Unless we're going to go through the whole process of reevaluating the criteria for inclusion - which will mean reevaluating every entry - we have to use the criteria we have. We have agreed that if a topic has been so characterized by a verifiable source, it should be listed here. hgilbert (talk) 18:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a clear case of WP:SYNTH, there is hardly a need to re-evalutate everything. Jefffire (talk) 20:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This looks like a clear case of a topic which has been characterized as a pseudoscience by a notable source. Whether you agree with the characterization or not is irrelevant here. What's important is there is a soure (multiple ones) which has characterized the topic as a pseudoscience. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 21:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, some are arguing that descriptions of PM such as humbug, sustained by elaborate evasions, superstition, antiscientific, science turned upside down, in conflict with biological evolution, and a belief or faith without evidence are not equivalent to calling it a pseudoscience, whereas (for other fields) phrases like "There is little scientific evidence" (polygraphs), "it was the subject of an almost entirely critical Taskforce Report," "these ideas have been rejected", "effectiveness has not been demonstrated" or "ideas are not based in science" are. Can we clarify why using the latter to include subjects here is not WP:Synth, while the former are? I'd like to sign myself, Confused in Dayton, but am, yours truly, hgilbert (talk) 01:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

See your real complaint is about the other entries. Please see WP:POINT. Unless you have sources other than a few dualists ragin' against the machine, this is obviously a nonsense. Jefffire (talk) 05:52, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Nope, it's about consistency. Consensus has been that synonyms suffice and that they aren't OR. --Middle 8 (talk) 03:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

There is also the unrelated point the entire subject seems to be pretty non-notable. A quick google search reveals about 1,400 hits for "Promissory materialism", which is a rather poor result. Jefffire (talk) 05:57, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

My point is that we should be following the article's guidelines. This means that when there are six substantial sources fully satisfying WP:Verify that characterize a topic as pseudoscientific in various terms the topic should be included in this article, while when there are no sources whatsoever characterizing a topic as pseudoscientific it should not be included. Follow the guidelines: that's the point.

BTW: Are you suggesting that Karl Popper is not a notable source? hgilbert (talk) 11:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

"Evolution Dissected" is a fairly blatant creationist tract. I think we can rule that out as a "substantial source", don't you ;) . In any case, I see no reason to suppose that this "promissary materialism" exists in any form other than in the writings of it's opponents. A bit like "reductionism", it's one of those things you only write about to be opposed to. Hey, how about we come up with a whole bunch of new words and declare them to pseudoscientific? Should liven the place up a bit. Jefffire (talk) 16:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I restored the section because the argument for it's removal (about it not being "clear cut" -- well neither is psychotherapy etc. also listed there) didn't seem to make sense to me, but there may be other reasons to remove it. The main problem with it is it is worded confusingly, so I do not know if Popper supports the idea or opposes it, and which way the people say is unscientific, etc. As it does not have an article yet, that may be an indication that the topic isn't notable enough for a mention here. I don't know. But at the very least the wording should be clarified. DreamGuy (talk) 14:57, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Eccles was a devout theist, so I suppose he probably opposed it. Regardless, one can disagree with something (even on quite fundamental philosphical levels) without regarding it a "pseudoscience", which is why I regard this as being highly synthetic addition. Jefffire (talk) 17:00, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The term "promissory materialism" probably shouldn't be the title; this is Popper's special term for a widely promulgated idea, that all consciousness is biologically determined. Popper and many others believe that this idea's advocates are making claims with no evidential basis, and they are terming it pseudoscience or equivalents (look at the terms used). Does that help? hgilbert (talk) 20:28, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

A "widely promulgated idea" that few to no-one would actually regard as a proven scientific theorem. It's a straw-man, like Steven Jay Gould's Phyletic gradualism. Frankly I'm rather disappointed that respected philosophers would stoop to such a poor rhetorical device, but that's that.

As you can see, progressing from Popper's strawman into any kind as Wikipedia acceptable format would bring with it colossal amounts of original research (a wiki no-no), and so the entry is an example of wp:synthesis. Jefffire (talk) 21:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'm just slow. A variety of verifiable sources, including an extremely notable authority used elsewhere in this article, have described a topic in terms that are clearly equivalent to pseudoscience. Whether the topic is listed by the name given by the most prominent of these authorities and used by many others, or whether it is listed by their description of the theme (e.g. a "biologically-deterministic theory of consciousness"), no SYNTH is required; we can merely summarize their own descriptions without any new combinations, syntheses or original research whatsoever. If you prefer, we can use exact quotes throughout. hgilbert (talk) 03:26, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

How about you show some evidence that this is anything other than a non-notable strawman? Most scientists would say that consciousness was almost certainly biologically determined, but I don't know of any who are forwarding an actual scientific theory to explain it. Jefffire (talk) 07:34, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that you're proving the point; as you say, most scientists say this. In addition, quite a few books have been written purporting to prove it; the sources listed in this section critique various of these - look at them for details.

The topic is notable (though not always named using Popper's somewhat disparaging term); critiques are found in quite a number of mainstream works; it satisfies the criteria of this article, being a "...topic characterized as pseudoscience by organizations within the international scientific community, by notable skeptical organizations, or by notable academics or researchers. Besides explicitly using the word "pseudoscience", some may also have used synonyms that help to explain why they consider a topic to be pseudoscientific. The existence of such expressed opinions suffices for inclusion in this list" hgilbert (talk) 11:33, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

You've missed the point. There's no-one claiming "promissary materialism" as a scientific claim, only people holding philosophical opinions on the matter, or debating the relative weights of evidences on the debate. The "promissary materialism" that is being criticised only exists within the minds of those objecting to it. You've simply dreamt up a controvery based on a few strawmen. The fact that one of the references you cite is a creationist shows just how unable you are to find serious discussion of the matter. Jefffire (talk) 11:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like your rationale is based on a hefty dose of OR and you're the only one objecting. --Middle 8 (talk) 03:40, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

OR doesn't apply to talk page comments, you are aware. I'm asking that someone show some evidence that "promissary materialism" - the position that science WILL eventually prove a biological basis for consciousness - is actually held as a scientific position. It's quite distinct from garden variety monism, which I gather some editors are conflating with it here. Burdon of evidence is always on the editors wishing inclusion. Jefffire (talk) 09:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Why the concern about verifying how many people believe in "promissary materialism"? Popper's an excellent source, he said so, and that's that -- we cite him, and refrain from endorsing or refuting his view. You may think he's knocking down a straw man -- well, I too perceive a lot of fallacious reasoning in sources here, and Popper's just one more, but I don't let my preferences disclude sources just because I don't argee with their reasoning. (That's what I meant by "OR", although it was a poor analogy metaphor.)

The notability of a topic, or how widely it is held, has never been used before as a consideration for inclusion on the list (just look at the range of topics). Popper is an RS, and if we go by longstanding consensus on inclusion criteria (as explicitly laid out in the lead, per WP:PSCI), then he goes in. regards, Middle 8 (talk) 06:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The citations already show this adequately. But cf. this and this or E Gerald, The remembered present: a biological theory of consciousness for a few examples. hgilbert (talk) 09:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

You're still supporting the creationist book as a "substantive source"? We'll discuss the finer points of WP:RS later.

The remembered present: a biological theory of consciousness Looks like fairly standard materialism - not promissary materialism. You're conflating the two ideas entirely. Jefffire (talk) 10:21, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking into "History Beyond Trauma" - I can't really find much of anything about "promissory materialism" in it from what's available online. Could you please quote the relavent section from it (also for the other books, for the benifit of those checking the reliability of your citations). Also, it appears to be written by nobodies. Another shining example of your "substantive source" ;) ? Jefffire (talk) 12:04, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe that there is still some confusing about the scope of inclusion with the list. This article doesn't include items which we claim are pseudoscience. Rather, this list contains items which have been characterized as pseudoscience by notable academics or researchers or organizations. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 16:47, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Since when have creationists been "notable academics or researchers or organizations"? I'd advice you to actually check the sources rather than blindly reverting. Jefffire (talk) 18:19, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Just because someone is a creationist, does not mean that they are not a notable academic or researcher. To assume such a thing is highly POVish. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 21:28, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Awesome. Does that mean we get to have a section on Evolution? Because a whole lotta creationists characterize it as pseudoscience. Auntie E. 15:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure. We absolutely should include that characterization as made by notable academics/researchers. Remember, even notable creationists are a reliable source for their own opinions. This article lists notable opinions ("characterizations"). An opinion about evolution as asserted by William A. Dembski, for instance, is notable. You and I and the majority of the science world may not agree with such a charactization, but "correctness" has nothing to with this list of opinions. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 17:05, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

It rather does preclude someone from being a serious researcher. Why not prove me wrong and demonstrate that the authors of "Evolution Dissected" have made a serious contribution to biology and that they are well respected authors in the field? A few papers in Nature or Cell, that sort of thing (burden of evidence is on editors wishing inclusion after all). Because right now it looks like you're blinding defending kooks. Jefffire (talk) 06:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with the very principle of what you are saying. The inclusion criteria of this article says nothing about the researcher being "serious"; only that the researcher is "notable". So while I - like you - don't take creationists seriously, I do regard them as notable with respect to the Wikipedia policy. (See Category:Creationists for a list of creationists notable enough to have their own article at Wikipedia).

I think we commonly attribute Voltaire with, "I may not agree with what you say but I'll fight to the death to defend your right to say it." I know some people will claim that I am defending "kooks". Such a claim is the hallmark move of the pseudoskeptical POV-pusher here at Wikipedia. It's tantamount to calling the U.S. Supreme Court "a bunch of Nazis" for allowing the National Socialist Party of America to march in Skokie. It's an unfair characterization and I know you wouldn't stoop that low, Jefffire, but I thank you for the admonishment.

I don't believe in creationism. The "Tale of the Tape" on my user page should make that abundantly clear. But while I don't believe in what they say, I do neutrally recognize that there are creationist academics and researchers who are notable and thus have characterizations which perfectly satisfy the inclusion criteria of this list-article as currently written in the lead.

So while I may not necessarily agree with what a creationist characterizes as pseudoscience, I will vigorously defend the right of that characterization to appear in this list. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 06:38, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Soliloquy aside- I asked for evidence that these particular authors were respected, and therefore notable. Please provide this. Jefffire (talk) 16:51, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

And I repeat that "respect" has nothing to do with notability and thus you are making an unnecessary request of me. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 17:25, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Writing a book does not make one "notable". Jefffire (talk) 17:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I would phrase it that per WP:AUTHOR, writing a book does not necessarily make one notable. Popper, however, is indisputably notable, so why are we having this conversation? You may be interested in reviewing Mind uploading which - though not necessary for this discussion - seems to be an example of promissory materialism currently put forward by what we would normally characterize as scientists. Even if not totally applicable, it does make for an interesting read! -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 18:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Keeping this sub-thread on target- You accept that "Evolution Dissected" is not an acceptable source? Jefffire (talk) 18:08, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

That's a tough one to answer. But I am certainly not discounting the book based on the fact that I disagree with theories it propounds. The author, Fredric Nelson, does not have an article written about him on Wikipeda (yet?), nor is there an article written about the book itself (yet?). In a cursory research attempt, I am able to discover that the Nelson is a pediatrician at a Philidelphia hospital and has been published in The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation and in AAP News. So that bodes well for his notability, but I am not rendering final judgment yet. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 18:21, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, you are beginning to understand what "providing evidence" means. However, neither of those establishes any particular notability (except perhaps, on the topic of paediatrics). Jefffire (talk) 18:45, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand perfectly well what "providing evidence" means and I don't appreciate your tone. I agree that being published in the AAP News helps to establish his notability as a pediatrician and that is off-topic here. The ASA publication, on the other hand, helps to establish his notability as a creationist. From the Wikipedia article: The American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) describes itself as a fellowship of men and women in science and related disciplines, whose stated goal is to share a common fidelity to the Bible and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science. Published articles such as this one and this one in the ASA's journal and the fact that he was a scientific (ahem) presenter at ASA meetings such as this one help establish Nelson's notability on the particular subject we are discussing, namely that he is a notable creationist academic/researcher. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 19:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I imagine Bill Demski has called evolution a pseudoscience on any number of occasions, and he's probably a thousand time more notable a creationist than Nielson. Will you be arguing for the inclusion of evolution, if that's the logic you are following? Jefffire (talk) 19:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Per the inclusion criteria given in the lead of this list-article, yes, I would advocate the inclusion of Evolution on this list. Dembski is clearly a notable academic and if he truly has a characterized Evolution as pseuodscience, then that characterization should be included on this page. Again, we as editors don't have to necessarily agree with the characterization, we only must recognize that the person making the characterization is a notable academic/researcher. Dembski is clearly that. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 19:43, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree. The whole point of this page is that it does not claim that the topic is pseudoscience, merely that it has been so characterized. We went through long discussions agreeing this. hgilbert (talk) 21:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

(←) Are we really back to ignoring sources generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand (emphasis in original) after only two months? Yes, it is entirely appropriate to limit this list to exclude extreme minority viewpoints, such as the idea that evolution, big bang theory, and the germ theory of disease are pseudoscience. Turning this list into a dumping ground for for this sort of thing would violate neutral point of view by inappropriately giving the impression of parity between the nonsense and the items sourced to ... (wait for it) ... sources generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. - 2/0 (cont.) 23:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

For example, Popper? hgilbert (talk) 01:53, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

And promissory materialism is not the subject. The subject is the biological explanation for consciousness, as is clear from the description. PM is merely a frequently used sobriquet for this frequently advocated, dubious theory. (If we like we can change the title of the section to reflect this.) hgilbert (talk) 16:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

But our "notable" critics- Eccles and Popper (and almost entirely Eccles, based on what I've been reading)- are criticising "promissory materialism", not regular materialism. The rest of your sources are fairly poor. Since you've made no effort to defend them, I must assume you agree. This is why I made the point of WP:SYNTH- you have conflated two separate subjects in your rush to add this in. Jefffire (talk) 18:19, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have misread what I wrote. We're not talking about a critique of materialism in general, but a critique of the biological explanation for consciousness, sometimes called "promissory materialism", and for which we have quite a list of sources, several of which are clearly notable and one of which is a disputed, but certainly plausible candidate for notability. Since any one of the notable sources would suffice, what are we arguing about? hgilbert (talk) 19:35, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I would argue that intelligent design creationists are prima facie not reliable to make distinctions relevant to this list. There may be exceptions, but why go there if we do not need to? As a side note, can we please stick to arguing this redlinked entry on its own merits (which, incidentally, I still find lacking) without getting sidetracked into another discussion on inclusion criteria and the misconstruing thereof? - 2/0 (cont.) 05:56, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Is there any objection to citing only Popper and sticking close to his words? To hell with the creationists (!!), but if Popper isn't an RS around here, what on earth is? --Middle 8 (talk) 09:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

The original wording of the section cited only Popper; it was removed with the justification that there was only one author who had made a characterization to this effect. You just can't please some people.

Obviously we should have one quite substantial source; additional, confirmatory sources seem sensible (if nothing else, to preclude this being demanded at some later point). BTW: None of these sources in any way violate WP:RS. hgilbert (talk) 11:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)