This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
Fresh article, ex nihilo. I don't know anything about the subject, but maybe someone could have an eye on it. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 17:44, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
[1] I wouldn't be surprised if this or something she writes shows up at some time in our articles. Doug Weller talk 12:34, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
I have consolidated all the COVID-19/ivermectin content, which was spread across 2½ articles, to:
Please add to your watchlist. This will likely soon need to be protected. Alexbrn ( talk) 14:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
Encyclopædius has removed the FDA tweet (and the lovely horse photo) on the grounds it is "propaganda" and launched a source-lite Talk page thread on that theme, claiming they're "seeing the same couple of editors putting out this propaganda", while repeating some talking points (ironically) that are propaganda from the quacks pushing this stuff (e.g. that that ivermectin is "approved" in Japan). More eyes would help. Alexbrn ( talk) 17:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Report them, or stop with the wp:pa. Slatersteven ( talk) 18:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
As they have reitred, and as it looks like they may be TBANed, let's stop this about a user stuff? Slatersteven ( talk) 15:21, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Somehow, Loftus' appearance in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial is more important than her main work now. The lede says she was "criticized by the prosecution" but not that she is "a cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory". I removed this UNDUE stuff before. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 22:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
On the talk page of the Warsaw concentration camp article, concerns have been raised about using this source's WP:ABOUTSELF usage to merely describe the main tenets of the conspiracy/fringe theory that the person propagated (her work was the seminal one to spread it):
Trzcińska, Maria (2002). Obóz zagłady w centrum Warszawy. Konzentrationslager Warschau [An extermination camp in the centre of Warsaw. Konzentrationslager Warschau] (in Polish). Radom: Polskie Wydawnictwo Encyklopedyczne. ISBN 83-88822-16-0.
K.e.coffman said that WP:FRIND forbids us from citing info directly to Trzcińska at all; on the other hand, I believe that citing the pages where her assertions about the camp may be found is only to provide context for the following sections, Refutation and Reactions+the article with that text passed the GA review on PL Wikipedia back in 2016, from which it was translated to English in September (though admittedly PL WP's policies don't include precise language of how to handle sources such as this for WP:ABOUTSELF purposes).
Is the framing and usage of this source in the article appropriate? Szmenderowiecki ( talk) 08:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities
Two fresh December WP:SPAs (or maybe one wearing two socks) try to WP:WAR WP:FRINGE text into the article. The next revert should come from somebody else. Maybe they both need a bit of coal in the sock too. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 15:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the Tucker Carlson page about whether we can include an attributed Media Matters analysis of the show's COVID coverage. [4] Some editors are disputing whether the rhetoric on Carlson's show actually undermines vaccines or otherwise downplays COVID. More eyes would be helpful. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 15:21, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Such a lits seems ok, but I'm not sure about the sources used as criteria: "The list below includes those features which remain unconfirmed, each of which is ranked according to a three-step confidence level as indicated by the Russian Academy of Sciences, by Anna Mikheeva: 1 for "probable", 2 for "potential", and 3 for "questionable". Level 4 is given to discredited structures, which hence represent geological features other than impact craters. Structures with confidence 0 are considered "confirmed" (EID) or "proven" (Mikheeva) and should be placed in the lists of confirmed craters according to continent." Umm al Binni mentioned above is in note 1 said to be proven by Mikheeva, although the recent source don't agree. In fact, one of the two sources, Sissakian, V.K. and Al-Bahadily, H.A., 2018. The geological origin of the Umm Al-Binni Lake within the Ahwar of Southern Mesopotamia, Iraq, which I have, concludes:
1. The study of the Umm Al-Binni Lake using the available geophysical data and remote sensing techniques did not support the meteorite impact crater origin for this Lake as believed previously.
2. It was found that the Lake rather has a tectonic origin as indicated; for example, the straight NE and SW Lake rims coincide with the general Zagros Thrust–Fold trend (NW–SE). Doug Weller talk 14:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
The user Beansohgod ( talk · contribs) prodded this page with a concern about giving undue weight to the credibility of certain accounts, mostly supported by mainstream media and books of dubious reliability.
The page is unencyclopedic and documents an urban legend as if it was a factual occurrence. The source material is questionable at best, and all of the relatively factual information can be transferred to other pages. Moreover, the article seems to be torn as to the credibility of its own subject, first asserting that the subject in question (organ theft) does not occur before presenting several examples of when it did.
— User:Beansohgod
I deprodded it because the Snopes and Skeptical Inquirer references are likely reliable for statements about the incredulity of claims, and Encyclopedia of Science Fiction for statements regarding its use in science fiction. Beansohgod also failed to specify a potential merge target for the remaining potentially WP:DUE material. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 20:52, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Opinions on renaming? On removing the "erroneously termed" in the lede? (See Talk:Vaccine shedding#Rename? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 08:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Two Ips inserting material claiming a deep prehistory for the Tamil, which even that page doesn't claim. First version was sourced to media and not all of them mentioned Tamil, second version left out all but one source. Some was copied from Adichanallur without attribution, and that article does not claim Tamil origin either except for some urns dated ca 1500 BCE. Doug Weller talk 17:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Also deals with the subject of race and intelligence. This link is actually to a review of The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium, by Joseph L. Graves, Jr. [5] Doug Weller talk 17:25, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
The source is published by British Archaeological Reports [6] which should mean its reputable, but as it is a collection of papers from the Second Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Cambridge Conference, and SIS is a Velikovskian group [7] I'm pretty dubious. I don't see the term used in mainstream publications or at least with reference to SIS, and I'm not convinced it's used in mainstream academia. For instance, Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse doesn't seem to mention it. This introduction to the publication is useful. [8] Doug Weller talk 12:13, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
This introduction to the publication is usefulBenny Peiser? Does this mean the climate change denialists have gone Velikovskian?
Sociologist who wrote about Satanic ritual abuse. See last section of Talk page. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:20, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Anthropologist who wrote The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge where he "hypothesizes that shamans may be able to access information at the molecular level through the ingestion of entheogens, specifically ayahuasca". Doug Weller talk 14:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Unnecessarily detailed boring stories of the sleeping prophet's daily life. If you like to delete entire paragraphs because they do not belong in an encyclopedia, this is for you. I only removed a few of them. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 15:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm trying to work on William Napier (astronomer) and Victor Clube who have written about this and who Ed Krupp described Clube and Napier as "thoughtful, credentialed scientists" but went on to demolish their argument on this view of comets. I've got a review by Ed Krupp [9] which I can provide the text fo if you can't read it. I've used this a bit already in Clube's article. This [10] might also be useful although we'd need the final version. I've done something with my back and in too much pain to do much, so any help would be useful. Doug Weller talk 16:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
This high percentage of active asteroids gives support to the hypothesis of a catastrophe that took place during the Upper Paleolithic (Clube and Napier, 1984).
The findings are welcomed by those who believe Comet Encke and the other products of this astronomical event are responsible for many of Earth's most violent and consequential impacts over the last 20,000 years.
Pretty garbled, lots of connections to about everything else, including Ascended masters from theosophy. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 21:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Why me, oh Lord? I keep running into things I wish I hadn't seen. See [12], some or all of which was reverted earlier by User:Wiqi55. I'm a bit concerned also that the page was protected on the 10th of December after an AN3 complaint, [13] in part because of probable socking. Doug Weller talk 09:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't want to do it unless it makes sense. Doug Weller talk 17:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
I don't see that there is any significant disagreement that the article has reliable sourcing to justify its existence. The main argument for merging seems to be that the quantity of the content is insufficient. Is there a policy that provides guidance on the preferred length of articles? In monitoring new Kentucky-related articles, I see an awful lot of short articles created about (for example) Negro League baseball players who only had a few at-bats in their careers. These are just as unlikely to ever grow beyond stub status as the ICR Discovery Center article - perhaps even less so, as most of these players have died, while the Center has just opened and has the potential for additional coverage of related events. An appeal to precedent may sound like WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but saying it should be merged despite sufficient sourcing just because it's short sounds a lot like WP:IDON'TLIKEIT to me. If, as XOR'easter ( talk · contribs) contends, there's nothing really harmful about leaving it as a short article, then I'm inclined to leave it as-is. There's some marginal benefit to having the facility show up in its related categories, imo. YMMV. Acdixon ( talk · contribs) 15:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Another COVID "critic". May need more knowledgeable watchers. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 09:04, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
See [15] Interesting conclusion:"Demand-driven looting matters, and archaeologists, scientific journals, media outlets, and the public should never blindly and blithely support or foster these activities through clickbait claims based on pseudoscience." And earlier in the article, "when Boslough noted on Twitter that “pottery shards from Sodom and Gomorrah would have a much greater market value than shards from some random unidentified site,” Collins dismissed this salient concern, against all evidence. He responded, “Poppycock.”" Doug Weller talk 11:18, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Recent edits seem highly dubious to me.
is connected. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#User:Rp2006 and something at RSN about Skeptical Inquirer. 12:47, 7 January 2022 (UTC) Doug Weller talk 12:47, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Anybody want to comb through all the articles about astral, causal, etheric, subtle, mental, and illusory bodies and their relations to each other? Do we need to map the fantasies of Blavatsky, Steiner, and some Asians from pre-scientific times (or later, but with the same attitude) into an interconnected web? If yes, how should it be organized?
Do we use the signs of the zodiac from different cultures as a precedent for this, with one article per body, or more obscure fantasy worldviews where we omit details of this granularity?
I fall asleep after half a sentence of anthroposophic gobbledigook, so I am not the right person for this. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 22:13, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Main Question: Are South Africans and international media rejecting name changes?
There has been a debate on Wikipedia for years as to whether or not South Africans are actively rejecting place names. All evidence I can find points to this being a South African conspiracy theory directly related to dissatisfaction following the end of apartheid. No other countries have had this many problems with name changes on Wikipedia. This post is for all renamed places in South Africa.
List of renamed places in Namibia and Nur-Sultan are just two examples that do not have this same issue.
A good starting point is List of renamed places in South Africa. Virtually every place on that list has had discussion about whether the new name is in use or not. Some names were changed over a decade ago and still do not have their page updated because it is not the WP:COMMONNAME. It does not make sense for Wikipedia to not use the name on street signs and used by media.
These articles highlight the protests from white Afrikaners who feel like their culture is being erased. All of these articles highlight the fact that these protests are almost exclusively voiced by white South Africans, who are a small minority within South Africa.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2002-03-02-0203020118-story.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4584211.stm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/28/southafrica.rorycarroll
These are all academic articles highlighting the debates in South Africa over name changes.
https://journals-sagepub-com.libproxy.unm.edu/doi/pdf/10.1068/d2112
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02572117.2007.10587293?needAccess=true
Significant evidence supports an understanding that these name changes are here to stay and in use by reliable, English language sources. These are all videos of South African media using the new names.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBVAAMGYBZo&t=99s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdzan5g9A9M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XqnFQckkH0 - Afriforum leader opposes name changes
There is no reason to debate all 500+ name changes when it is clear that the only significant opposition these names have are from a small minority of South African society. If an English speaking South African uses Wikipedia, then oftentimes the name on the Wikipedia page won't match the name used on street signs and in media. Letting these fringe views proliferate makes Wikipedia worse. Desertambition ( talk) 21:20, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm uncertain about this large edit. [16] It's actually not much about slavery but mainly about the Exodus, adding text from Richard Elliott Friedman and changing "Modern archaeologists do not believe the Israelites were ever in ancient Egypt in significant numbers and were indigenous to Canaan." to "Some archaeologists and historians doubt that Israelites were ever in ancient Egypt in significant numbers, and most archaeologists agree that the ancient Israelite culture was indigenous to Canaan." @ Aminomancer: it's the word "some" that bothers me, as I believe that the mainstream view is that they were not there in significant numbers. Doug Weller talk 08:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Could use more eyes on this one. Lots of newer editors arriving on the talk page. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 23:59, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Might be worth a look or adding to watchlist if the subject is of interest. Doug Weller talk 17:00, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Is this really a separate thing from GWPF? Its article suggests it's just a "rebrand". Anyhow mentioning it here because "[t]he group says that they should be called "climate change sceptics", not "deniers"." -- JBL ( talk) 15:54, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
The source is a tripod link which doesn't seem to back it up anyway. I couldn't find anything except woowoo. Doug Weller talk 14:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Just noticed this: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Columns at Skeptical Inquirer
From past experience, there will be people who WP:CLAIM [sic!] that my posting this here is canvassing. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 12:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
It discusses how much social media is spreading these ideas, and this is also interesting: "researchers like Miami University’s Card fear that for some people, alternative history — especially the belief that archaeologists are conspiring to hide the truth from the public — can be a gateway to other kinds of misinformation." [21] Doug Weller talk 17:18, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
References
The prejudice against mātauranga as science derives from historical attitudes and concepts of Enlightenment science and that it is concerned about the history of science rather than the current scientific method.
There seems to be a kerfuffle in New Zealand, with the Royal Society there claiming that Mātauranga Māori is a "way of knowing" on par with science, and scientists being admonished for disagreeing. Jerry Coyne has been writing about it on [22] for a while, comparing it with the conflict between creationism and science in the US. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:59, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
Certain kinds of folk knowledge are valid and priceless. Others are at best metaphors and codifiers. Ethnomedicine, yes; astrophysics, no.) There are ways that "indigenous knowledge" could fit into a science class taught with a historical perspective, just like introductory college physics explains Ptolemaic epicycles. In turn, it is very easy to portray neutral-to-helpful efforts to do that kind of thing and make science more culturally engaging as nefarious attempts to devalue science. At a distance, through the haze of culture-warring, it can be hard to tell the former from the latter. This is particularly true when the efforts to do the former are described in public-relations pablum, in which the Royal Society Te Apārangi indulges as much as any Society. Coyne, who is willing to cite the Daily Mail on this, seems a poor starting point for a genuinely messy topic. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
European science does tend to unfairly discredit the knowledge of any other cultural group, without any regard for whether there's truth behind itsurely reinforces those associations.
The lede sentence about science was a bit garbled. The paper it references is actually quite good and identifies more than a few instances of the scientific method being applied in the context of this topic. I rewrote the sentence to align with this source, at least. jps ( talk) 03:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a request for retraction of the paper cited there "A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea" Some of the details are here which is of course not an RS, just bringing it here for information. Interesting that Trinity Southwest University is located in a strip mall. [23] Doug Weller talk 17:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
Relevant discussion at | → User talk:Aluxosm#Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis |
Turns out that User:Aluxosm (see above) has now written 57.4% of this page. A lot of it is now based on James L. Powell, a respected geologist who sounds like a really good guy, but he seems to have gone off-piste here. His book Deadly Voyager: The Ancient Comet Strike that Changed Earth and Human History is self-published and the praise of it here [25] is from someone's personal website. And I guess no surprise, Hancock is also used as a source in that paragraph. I have no idea why Powell is used as a source for the first sentence in the lead instead of the earlier reference. Younger Dryas is if anything a bit worse I think. Doug Weller talk 09:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Thoughts on whether this article as written is WP:PROFRINGE and possibly a WP:POVFORK for Male privilege?
Thanks, Generalrelative ( talk) 17:07, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
Just an update that the AfD has now become a target for SPAs, likely sock- or meatpuppets. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:14, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
New article from 6 Jan, of interest to this noticeboard:
Alexbrn ( talk) 21:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
Right now the information we provide might save lives, if anything validates wp:iar it is that. In a year's time it will be too late for many. We have a duty and an obligation (yes here I am invoking IAR to ignore wp:not) to help in the fight against Covidiocy and to help save lives. So I am no longer in any doubt, this list (or article either works) might help do that. As such I can see a value to it, more so than most of the rest of the content people fight so hard to keep. Slatersteven ( talk) 18:20, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
the brief appearance of names in news stories). I'd support an AFD and may nominate it myself if nobody else does so. Jr8825 • Talk 20:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
You know… I am not sure that I am clear on what this article is actually supposed to be about. From the title, it would appear that us is about the various deaths themselves. But on reading the lead, I would expect the article to be entitled something more along the lines of Media reaction to the deaths of Anti-vaccine advocates who died of Covid (as the lead focuses on “media reporting”). The body seems to be a “list” of media reports (albeit not in “list format”). So which is it? If the article is to survive a potential AFD nomination, it needs to more clearly define its topic and probably needs a complete overhaul once that topic is more clearly defined. Blueboar ( talk) 19:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
"repeated accusations that doctors are falsifying death certificates of people they looked after; that most of those patients died from other conditions and only “with” covid-19; or that most people with a covid diagnosis really just had a “false positive” test, despite the clinical features we could see"– this is about COVID-19 misinformation/conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy, not deaths of anti-vaxxers in the way that seems to have been discussed in the US. Jr8825 • Talk 05:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
This should all really be at the article talk page, not a tangentially related noticeboard. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 23:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
I think Jr8825's concern about SYNTH are sound. Many of the sources even in the body of the article look like they are sourced to articles about people who died rather than sources about the phenomena the article is supposed to be about. Also, recent edits here basically added a name to the article body [32]. The edit was correct in it made the link more obvious but the source for the claim was about the death, not the phenomena of these lists existing or being reported. More and more I don't see how this article won't evolve into just a list of people who editors feel should be included in one of the deleted lists. Springee ( talk) 17:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
A few comments: first, to me a title like Media reaction to the deaths of Anti-vaccine advocates who died of Covid sounds unnecessarily indirect. Whatever the article contains will be based upon media reports, so adding "Media reaction to the..." to the front of the title seems like moving COVID-19 to What reliable sources have to say about COVID-19. Maybe it's not completely redundant, but investing the extra words doesn't seem to buy enough extra clarity to be worthwhile. Also, I'm not sold on the idea that there is a WP:SYNTH problem (or at least one so fundamental that the article needs to be torched). Grouping together events that are obviously, manifestly related is mere juxtaposition. What new conclusion is supposedly being drawn here? To me, a true synthesis would require something like invoking these stories to bolster a claim about American culture that none of the sources themselves put forth. I'm just not seeing that in the text at hand. (Maybe this topic lends itself to such syntheses, but we don't delete articles just because the topic potentially risks violating NOR.) XOR'easter ( talk) 22:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I tend to agree that the actual direct media coverage of these deaths (both vaccinated and unvaccinated, each potentially fueling someone's agenda), and the navel-gazing on the actual ethics of it, probably belong more as a subsection on one of our articles about the topic. Trimming the length will make WP:SYNTH less appealing to try and pad out the article, and it lets us cover the trends of both the 'look at this unvaccinated person who could have avoided death' and the 'this person was vaccinated but died of COVID anyway' articles. Bakkster Man ( talk) 15:07, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I've nominated the related Herman Cain Award article for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Herman Cain Award. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 16:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I hope I didn’t miss seeing an earlier mention, if I did, sorry. Doug Weller talk 20:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
I have begun a discussion on the talk page of Animal cruelty and the Holocaust analogy regarding the lead images used in this article. Please see the images for yourself, and I would appreciate any input from this project's members. See Talk:Animal cruelty and the Holocaust analogy#Lead image used in article for further discussion.
Not sure if this totally relevant here, but since someone has cited WP:FRINGE on the talk page, I suppose it makes sense to alert people here (and it is usually fringe groups that make this comparison; most animal rights groups tend to steer away from overt Holocaust imagery or messaging). — AFreshStart ( talk) 22:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
An RfC which may be of interest to watchers of this page is currently ongoing at the linked talk page. Cheers, RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 03:29, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
More attention is needed on COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China where a couple of editors are outright censoring the fact that China deliberately underreported the covid-19 statistics despite the sentence being standing for 2 years.
They are relying on a study largely written by Chinese employees who work under Chinese government.
The discussion can be seen at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#The “2021 academic study”. TolWol56 ( talk) 06:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
Discussions can be advertised to noticeboards and WikiProjects to receive participation from interested uninvolved editors.
Posting a neutrally worded notice of the dispute on applicable noticeboards will make the dispute more visible to other editors who may have worthwhile opinions. I commend TolWol56 for bringing this dispute here and getting valuable feedback. China has also promoted TCM as a COVID-19 treatment [33], and even outlawed any criticism of it [34], which is why we avoid Chinese research on such subjects. CutePeach ( talk) 15:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
"They are relying on a study largely written by Chinese employees who work under Chinese government. ... But the research in question is meant to whitewash CCP's handling of Covid-19 thus it is not WP:RS."This does rings a few alarm bells. It is assuming too much about someone's nationality and discounting them, rather than simply being more cautious and attribute until fabrication claims are confirmed. FormalDude is correct:
"WP:INDEPENDENT is evaluated separately from WP:RELIABLE. A source not being independent does not automatically make it unreliable, though it sometimes makes it unsuitable for Wikipedia."And since we are using Western publications—the BJM, Nature—not Chinese publications, what is the issue other than their nationalities? It is getting close to conspiring and assuming too much, and bordering on xenophobia, even if I that is not the intent. It does look like "Right Great Wrongs" — if there is anything that appear to whitewash CCP's handling of COVID-19, it is not a reliable source, which is how conspiracy theories and misinformation thrives; even a broken clock is right twice a day, and
"[i]t is both the case that high quality research on Covid-19 has been done in China that does not raise alarm bells and there is evidence of pressure from the government that does. I think there is a need for increased caution, but sources need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis."Here, Jumpytoo gave a good analysis of those high-quality news outlets, and they either tell a different story or do not actually rely on experts in the field to support the statement in wikivoice.
"News outlets initially reported concerns that the Chinese government under-reported the extent of infections and deaths"would indeed be a more accurate and better summary, though I would not give all of them the same weight; some of it are much better than others. Davide King ( talk) 14:23, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
In January 2021, the user Springnuts ( talk · contribs) removed much of Three Gorges Dam#Structural integrity due to allegedly promoting a POV promulgated by one scientist based in Germany, Wang Weiluo (王維洛), and largely based on a Google Earth image allegedly showing deformation, and which was supported by news sources they deemed unreliable for science and engineering topics. However, it was re-added in November that year by an anonymous user from Sydney, who disputes the claim that it is undue. Neither the removal nor the re-adition was adequately discussed, so now I'm bringing the concern here. The reaction to the panic may be okay, but how much coverage and what kind of references should we use for details about the deformation? – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 04:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
{{
lang|zh|王維洛}}
as a shorter and standardized alternative to typing out <span lang=zh>王維洛</span>
. —
2d37 (
talk) 22:37, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
Another repressed memories thing. As these are fringe, the articles should written accordingly. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 13:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Recovered memory, in which a suppressed traumatic incident is recalled years later, has been one of the most disputed topics among mental-health professionals in the last 15 years. The American Psychological Association states that while "there is a consensus among memory researchers and clinicians that most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them," most leaders in the field also agree "that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later."Would language along those lines be sufficient to get across the fringeyness of recovered memories? Since it's in the source, I can just quote the APA without running afoul of WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 13:52, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
A discussion on this page might be of interest to editors here. 2600:1012:B002:3AB0:752F:5712:DD20:5C21 ( talk) 21:49, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
After failing to add POV and remove NPOV, user now demands third-party sources. Anybody familiar with false memories? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 08:36, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
they just didn't appear made in good-faithI disagree. If you are someone whose worldview includes any of these:
Wandered over to MfD and saw a ton of redirects being nominated for this article. Looking at the article it seems to just be an essay on the teachings. Tempted to send to AfD, but seems like the topic itself may be notable, just the content is inappropriate for an encyclopedia or at least the presentation. Anyway, coming here to get some eyes and opinions. Slywriter ( talk) 20:52, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
See here. I'm not reverting because there's no way I'm restoring Creation Safaris as a source, and I have other work to do more in my field of interest. Doug Weller talk 11:10, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Hello, Fringe Theories Noticeboard,
I apologize if this is an awkward choice of a first question for me to ask here, but: some months ago, I came across an article on a book, I thought the article seemed problematic, and I thought that I was too inexperienced an editor to diagnose exactly what its problems are and then fix them but, I recall thinking, the regulars at WP:FTN likely would have a better idea. I recall thinking that, if the book were fiction, one could say that the article's problem was that it appeared to be written from an MOS:INUNIVERSE perspective. I don't remember that the book was promoting any specific "known" fringe theories per se, but it seemed to be criticizing "science" as an institution and a worldview, and the article seemed to be restating the book's arguments uncritically, which seemed like the sort of thing that gets taken to FTN.
In the intervening time, I've forgotten the name of the book; I think its author was a man, British I think, whose name started with the letter 'E'. In case I do find the article again, does that sound like the sort of thing that belongs at this noticeboard?
— 2d37 ( talk) 03:44, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Schumacher points out that though we can recognize life and destroy it, we can't create it.
Schumacher explains that the bodily senses are adequate for perceiving inanimate matter; but we need 'intellectual' senses for other levels.
Schumacher notes that within philosophy there is no field in more disarray than ethics.
For Schumacher one of science's major mistakes has been rejecting the traditional philosophical and religious view that the universe is a hierarchy of being. Schumacher makes a restatement of the traditional chain of being.( Special:Permalink/1027048351 § Levels of being)
as an explanation for the development of consciousness, self-awareness, language, social institutions and the origin of life itself( Special:Permalink/1027048351 § Evolutionism)
life, consciousness and self-consciousnessultimately cannot be explained by science-as-we-know-it and, thus, (2) the existence of souls, or some such thing, to account for his posited
discontinuities. I don't mean I would want Soul to say "souls aren't real!", but I'm uncomfortable with the article's seemingly implying some such seemingly unfalsifiable concept is real (or, rather, is needed to explain reality) either — but enough of my own POV. I don't know where (if at all) #1 should fall on the spectrum of fringe theories if considered as science, let alone as philosophy. I'm more confident that #2 is undesired in wikivoice (or de-facto wikivoice — even if the claims are attributed to the author, his POV and the article's POV seem indistinct). — 2d37 ( talk) 19:16, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Patrol blimp in WW II crashed sans crew; the "theories" section plays up fringey ideas but ignores USNI explanations which are apparently too prosaic. I'm going to attempt a clean up but could use other eyes. Mangoe ( talk) 05:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Talk:List_of_Shakespeare_authorship_candidates#Recent_WP:SPS_additions. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 20:26, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
This is turning into an argument about Cheikh Anta Diop. Doug Weller talk 23:36, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
This new article, Mass formation, born out of a discussion here, seems to argue that supporters of COVID vaccination are a angry mob who are not acting rationally. Thoughts? - MrOllie ( talk) 14:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I got into a tiff at Robert W. Malone with a user wanting to include a somewhat long quote about this very thing. jps ( talk) 02:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Well, I'm back from a wikibreak and I see a bunch of sources that possibly could be discussed, but notice that the discussion at the article talkpage has been archived away with the text basically the same from before, so perhaps we're okay with the current text? Or maybe not. Anyway, hello everybody! jps ( talk) 22:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Anyone know much about him? I wasn’t sure of the recent edits, and just looking at the lead there are some statements that probably at least need attribution. I didn’t get further than the lead as I’m off to bed. Doug Weller talk 21:22, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
founded the radiocarbon laboratory of Dakar, which specialized in the dating of Africa’s oldest archaeological and geological materials. Continuing his scientific work during the 1960s, he published Le Laboratoire de Radiocarbone de l’IFAN (1968, The Radiocarbon Laboratory at IFAN) and Physique Nucléaire et Chronologie Absolue (1974, Nuclear Physics and Absolute Dating). In these works he discussed IFAN, his scientific work there, and diverse methods of dating archaeological and geological samples, especially those used in research at IFAN.That's not to say that many of his ideas about race and history aren’t FRINGE. Clearly they are. It's also not to say that he made contributions to theoretical physics. But let's refrain from sneering at the man's real accomplishments. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:19, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
N.b. Diop is certainly well known in Black Studies circles. For example, he is listed as one of the forerunners of Asante's proposals. He is famous for adopting certain approaches that now read, if not quaint, then outright blinkered, but this needs to be seen in the light of the 1950s and 60s thrall of scientific racism within history, anthropology, and Egyptology. His opponents spent much of their time arguing, without any hint of self-reflection, that Egyptians were *actually* members of the "white race". The counter by Diop, somewhat spectacularly, was to use that very (what we now see as) pseudoscience on its own terms to show that they were Black. I think he probably was something of a race realist himself, but he did not live long enough to engage with the scholarship that showed how race is a social construct rather than a validated biological identifier. jps ( talk) 21:23, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
I've got a paper from this source [41] called Gunung Padang and the Indo-Malaysian megalithism: archaeology and Pseudoarchaeology which looks really useful to edit Gunung Padang (note I am finding this promoted in other articles as ridiculously old). But it's in Spanish and I don't have anything that will translate a multi-page document. Anyone? Too much work to do by hand. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 07:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
I want to add stronger warnings against the use of predatory journals / explanations for why those should not be cited on Wikipedia. Others disagree. Please comment. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 16:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Not sure what's going on here [43] but seems to be part of an extensive WP:GEVAL push. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 18:33, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
I have started a discussion over whether whether Wikipedia should describe psychics or mediums as "claimed", "self-purported", etc. Obviously, I do not think Wikipedia should be promoting fringe claims of individuals, but I am concerned that (a) the policy is being applied inconsistently here, and (b) co-ordinated editing, as related to the ongoing arb case, may be influencing decisions here. As this relates to fringe theories, I thought it would be of note to editors here. Thank you. — AFreshStart ( talk) 14:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
New editor plans to add authors supporting him. [44] Doug Weller talk 17:05, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
So exactly what is the problem with a new editor adding sourced material to an article? BRealAlways ( talk) 23:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
It would be nice to have some additional input at Talk:Brian_Rose_(podcaster)#RfC_on_text_around_conspiracy_theories to get a clearer decision one way or the other. Bondegezou ( talk) 11:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Can some people here take a look at Bechor Zvi Aminoff, Aminoff Suffering Syndrome and Aminoff Entropy definition of Human Happiness and Suffering. It all seems extremely fringey to me, and probably not notable at all, but I might be missing something so I prefered to ask here instead of tagging for deletion immediately. Apart from the lack of independent references, warning bells included "He was awarded an Honorary Doctor degree of the Yorker International University" ("a for-profit unaccredited institution": "The institution has no professors and, on the basis of life experiences, issues Master's degrees and even PhDs in several fields.") and " awarded a Research Professor Degree from the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England." ("Government consumer advocates have described it as a "scam"[3] or as "pretty tacky".", "The International Biographical Centre creates "awards" and offers them widely. In 2004, an award was said to cost the recipient US$495 or £295,") Fram ( talk) 09:36, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
See the latest edit at Talk:Joseph Justus Scaliger#False history creator by User:BRealAlways Three edits at Talk:Anatoly Fomenko by the same editor, and another at Talk:Joseph Justus Scaliger (including for instance "archaeologists already have evidence that some form of advanced technology was used worldwide." and an accusation that archaeologists are covering something up. I'll notify the editor. Doug Weller talk 16:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Doug Weller: "and an accusation that archaeologists are covering something up." I never said archaeologists were covering anything up. When I said, "..., which begs the question whether archaeologists are covering up something for convenience sake.", that is not an accusation. It is the application of skepticism in view of evidence [ [45]]. Just as a common perception that "the religious" will filter evidence according to their world view, the "anti-religious" may slant evidence in their favor as an antithetical response based on their beliefs. This is the basis of information inclusion and omission. While some of my talk edits may have been inappropriate, how does this vilify those who essentially do the same thing in the opposite direction? User:PaleoNeonate I can understand your concern that things go smoothly here. I had one editor tell me "We're not a blog, we're not here to promote any ideology." I can appreciate that, yet I continue to see clear violations of the "working together" rule. To say this has nothing to do with an ideology is presumptive. If you are to "make an example of some", or even one, I see that as selective when it doesn't apply to all. From what I can see, you're being selective about who you warn of violations. The goal of these actions can be either good faith presuming innocence until proven guilty, or more of an "I'll stand on his toes until he gets sufficiently irritated". Using a position of power (WP admin) to accomplish the task of discouraging others is contemptible, and must be accompanied by a motive. I am sincerely hoping this is not the case, and your edits are honestly intended to promote good will among editors. I will have to say that it doesn't seem to be the case, but I could be wrong. I am fully aware of internet subculture movements. They allow actors to play roles in places they would otherwise not have access to. I would like to continue to contribute to making WP articles better. The tag-team approach I have been seeing doesn't give me much confidence that WP has placed proper controls in appropriate places. Specifically, I am not seeing why it would be necessary for me to feel that I must defend myself in this productive environment. BRealAlways ( talk) 04:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
References
Complaint on the Talk page: This article presents Steiner's work as wildly accepted and does not ground it in a wider scientific or philosophical contexts where his work has largely been dismissed
I must say that complaint has merit. The Reception section contains nothing about his adherence to - at the time already - obsolete scientific ideas and all the crazy stuff based on his clairvoyance, and the "Judaism" part is a mix of reception of other ideas by him and his ideas by others - including Nazis. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:07, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a ton of good research out there, as an administrator noted long ago, and that's why the vast majority of the citations are to verifiable sources from outside the anthroposophic/Waldorf movement. (The exceptions are exclusively used for facts (numbers of institutions, etc.) that are acceptable under WP:SELFSOURCE.)
Interesting that the recent storm of criticism of the article's text is itself not citing verifiable sources. Clean Copy talk 01:20, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Rudolf Steiner joined the Nazi party in its early daystgeorgescu ( talk) 04:19, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construedpart was meant to cover things like pesticides, organic, etc. where a lot of pseudoscience comes up. More at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#Discretionary_Sanctions. Plus, there's always the straight up pseudoscience DS too. KoA ( talk) 22:12, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Clean Copy and 23mason have already been warned of discretionary sanctions for pseudoscience and alternative medicine. tgeorgescu ( talk) 23:13, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience".tgeorgescu ( talk) 03:12, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Just came across:
Including a link to Amazon "reviews". Yikes. Alexbrn ( talk) 20:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Drbogdan is reverting my attempts to clean up the lead of the Abiogenesis article by removing the paragraph on Panspermia, which inappropriately presents it as a mainstream scholarly view rather than the fringe theory it actually is. It's also not actually relevant as panspermia does not deal with the creation of life to begin with. As noted at Talk:Abiogenesis#Article's_length,_style,_and_complexity Abiogenesis is the #1345 longest article on Wikipedia and is a total incoherent dumpster fire. It needs to be nuked from orbit and rewritten from scratch. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 04:00, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
dozens of peer-reviewed papersdoesn't prevent a theory from being considered WP:FRINGE/ALT. At which point
They should not be classified as pseudoscience but should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective.If it's a non-mainstream view, we should describe it as such. Having strong peer-reviewed sources helps define that it's good science, just not as widely accepted an explanation as others. Bakkster Man ( talk) 14:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
Some day panspermia will be properly demarcated between the outre, wacky, but vaguely plausible (life came from mars on meteorites) and the outright crankish (the ISM is freeze-dried bacteria). I am something of the opinion that it deserves mention in the context of astrobiology rather than abiogenesis. As far as I know, there are no serious biologists working on panspermia in the context of abiogenesis and therefore is improperly WP:WEIGHTed for inclusion there at all. On the other hand, there are a number of textbooks on astrobiology which make the briefest of mentions of panspermia, so I suppose we can follow their lead. jps ( talk) 21:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
The alternative panspermia hypothesis speculates that microscopic life arose outside Earth by unknown mechanisms, and spread to the early Earth on space dust and meteoroids. It is known that complex organic molecules occur in the Solar System and in interstellar space, and these molecules may have provided starting material for the development of life on Earth.
With the evidence of the presence of organic molecules in space, soft panspermia theories emerged, which argued that pre-biotic molecules originate from space. These theories upheld that the extraterrestrial pre-biotic molecules were distributed on earth when life began (abiogenesis). Recent studies investigated the isotopic ratio of chlorine in oceanic dorsal in order to find evidence of the formation of the ocean. It was concluded that most of the water on Earth has an extraterrestrial origin. Pre-biotic molecules such as amino acids may have arrived on earth within this water.Viriditas ( talk) 22:44, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The current consensus is that Earth acquired most its water by accretion of carbonaceous chondrite material, particularly CI-like chondrites, from beyond the snow line in the solar nebula.[48], no idea if that any bearing on "soft" panspermia. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 22:54, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
the idea that organic chemicals formed in interstellar space, became incorporated into the cloud of gas and dust from which the Sun formed and thereby seeded the Earth and other planets with the raw materials from which life could originate.Viriditas ( talk) 23:34, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The related Cosmic ancestry article has been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cosmic ancestry. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 00:27, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Climate change driving evolution so fast that animals are changing in weeks.The book discussed is by Thor Hanson (biologist). Doug Weller talk 14:51, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
Fresh article, ex nihilo. I don't know anything about the subject, but maybe someone could have an eye on it. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 17:44, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
[1] I wouldn't be surprised if this or something she writes shows up at some time in our articles. Doug Weller talk 12:34, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
I have consolidated all the COVID-19/ivermectin content, which was spread across 2½ articles, to:
Please add to your watchlist. This will likely soon need to be protected. Alexbrn ( talk) 14:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
Encyclopædius has removed the FDA tweet (and the lovely horse photo) on the grounds it is "propaganda" and launched a source-lite Talk page thread on that theme, claiming they're "seeing the same couple of editors putting out this propaganda", while repeating some talking points (ironically) that are propaganda from the quacks pushing this stuff (e.g. that that ivermectin is "approved" in Japan). More eyes would help. Alexbrn ( talk) 17:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Report them, or stop with the wp:pa. Slatersteven ( talk) 18:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
As they have reitred, and as it looks like they may be TBANed, let's stop this about a user stuff? Slatersteven ( talk) 15:21, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Somehow, Loftus' appearance in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial is more important than her main work now. The lede says she was "criticized by the prosecution" but not that she is "a cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory". I removed this UNDUE stuff before. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 22:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
On the talk page of the Warsaw concentration camp article, concerns have been raised about using this source's WP:ABOUTSELF usage to merely describe the main tenets of the conspiracy/fringe theory that the person propagated (her work was the seminal one to spread it):
Trzcińska, Maria (2002). Obóz zagłady w centrum Warszawy. Konzentrationslager Warschau [An extermination camp in the centre of Warsaw. Konzentrationslager Warschau] (in Polish). Radom: Polskie Wydawnictwo Encyklopedyczne. ISBN 83-88822-16-0.
K.e.coffman said that WP:FRIND forbids us from citing info directly to Trzcińska at all; on the other hand, I believe that citing the pages where her assertions about the camp may be found is only to provide context for the following sections, Refutation and Reactions+the article with that text passed the GA review on PL Wikipedia back in 2016, from which it was translated to English in September (though admittedly PL WP's policies don't include precise language of how to handle sources such as this for WP:ABOUTSELF purposes).
Is the framing and usage of this source in the article appropriate? Szmenderowiecki ( talk) 08:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities
Two fresh December WP:SPAs (or maybe one wearing two socks) try to WP:WAR WP:FRINGE text into the article. The next revert should come from somebody else. Maybe they both need a bit of coal in the sock too. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 15:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the Tucker Carlson page about whether we can include an attributed Media Matters analysis of the show's COVID coverage. [4] Some editors are disputing whether the rhetoric on Carlson's show actually undermines vaccines or otherwise downplays COVID. More eyes would be helpful. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 15:21, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Such a lits seems ok, but I'm not sure about the sources used as criteria: "The list below includes those features which remain unconfirmed, each of which is ranked according to a three-step confidence level as indicated by the Russian Academy of Sciences, by Anna Mikheeva: 1 for "probable", 2 for "potential", and 3 for "questionable". Level 4 is given to discredited structures, which hence represent geological features other than impact craters. Structures with confidence 0 are considered "confirmed" (EID) or "proven" (Mikheeva) and should be placed in the lists of confirmed craters according to continent." Umm al Binni mentioned above is in note 1 said to be proven by Mikheeva, although the recent source don't agree. In fact, one of the two sources, Sissakian, V.K. and Al-Bahadily, H.A., 2018. The geological origin of the Umm Al-Binni Lake within the Ahwar of Southern Mesopotamia, Iraq, which I have, concludes:
1. The study of the Umm Al-Binni Lake using the available geophysical data and remote sensing techniques did not support the meteorite impact crater origin for this Lake as believed previously.
2. It was found that the Lake rather has a tectonic origin as indicated; for example, the straight NE and SW Lake rims coincide with the general Zagros Thrust–Fold trend (NW–SE). Doug Weller talk 14:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
The user Beansohgod ( talk · contribs) prodded this page with a concern about giving undue weight to the credibility of certain accounts, mostly supported by mainstream media and books of dubious reliability.
The page is unencyclopedic and documents an urban legend as if it was a factual occurrence. The source material is questionable at best, and all of the relatively factual information can be transferred to other pages. Moreover, the article seems to be torn as to the credibility of its own subject, first asserting that the subject in question (organ theft) does not occur before presenting several examples of when it did.
— User:Beansohgod
I deprodded it because the Snopes and Skeptical Inquirer references are likely reliable for statements about the incredulity of claims, and Encyclopedia of Science Fiction for statements regarding its use in science fiction. Beansohgod also failed to specify a potential merge target for the remaining potentially WP:DUE material. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 20:52, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Opinions on renaming? On removing the "erroneously termed" in the lede? (See Talk:Vaccine shedding#Rename? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 08:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Two Ips inserting material claiming a deep prehistory for the Tamil, which even that page doesn't claim. First version was sourced to media and not all of them mentioned Tamil, second version left out all but one source. Some was copied from Adichanallur without attribution, and that article does not claim Tamil origin either except for some urns dated ca 1500 BCE. Doug Weller talk 17:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Also deals with the subject of race and intelligence. This link is actually to a review of The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium, by Joseph L. Graves, Jr. [5] Doug Weller talk 17:25, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
The source is published by British Archaeological Reports [6] which should mean its reputable, but as it is a collection of papers from the Second Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Cambridge Conference, and SIS is a Velikovskian group [7] I'm pretty dubious. I don't see the term used in mainstream publications or at least with reference to SIS, and I'm not convinced it's used in mainstream academia. For instance, Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse doesn't seem to mention it. This introduction to the publication is useful. [8] Doug Weller talk 12:13, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
This introduction to the publication is usefulBenny Peiser? Does this mean the climate change denialists have gone Velikovskian?
Sociologist who wrote about Satanic ritual abuse. See last section of Talk page. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:20, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Anthropologist who wrote The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge where he "hypothesizes that shamans may be able to access information at the molecular level through the ingestion of entheogens, specifically ayahuasca". Doug Weller talk 14:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Unnecessarily detailed boring stories of the sleeping prophet's daily life. If you like to delete entire paragraphs because they do not belong in an encyclopedia, this is for you. I only removed a few of them. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 15:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm trying to work on William Napier (astronomer) and Victor Clube who have written about this and who Ed Krupp described Clube and Napier as "thoughtful, credentialed scientists" but went on to demolish their argument on this view of comets. I've got a review by Ed Krupp [9] which I can provide the text fo if you can't read it. I've used this a bit already in Clube's article. This [10] might also be useful although we'd need the final version. I've done something with my back and in too much pain to do much, so any help would be useful. Doug Weller talk 16:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
This high percentage of active asteroids gives support to the hypothesis of a catastrophe that took place during the Upper Paleolithic (Clube and Napier, 1984).
The findings are welcomed by those who believe Comet Encke and the other products of this astronomical event are responsible for many of Earth's most violent and consequential impacts over the last 20,000 years.
Pretty garbled, lots of connections to about everything else, including Ascended masters from theosophy. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 21:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Why me, oh Lord? I keep running into things I wish I hadn't seen. See [12], some or all of which was reverted earlier by User:Wiqi55. I'm a bit concerned also that the page was protected on the 10th of December after an AN3 complaint, [13] in part because of probable socking. Doug Weller talk 09:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't want to do it unless it makes sense. Doug Weller talk 17:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
I don't see that there is any significant disagreement that the article has reliable sourcing to justify its existence. The main argument for merging seems to be that the quantity of the content is insufficient. Is there a policy that provides guidance on the preferred length of articles? In monitoring new Kentucky-related articles, I see an awful lot of short articles created about (for example) Negro League baseball players who only had a few at-bats in their careers. These are just as unlikely to ever grow beyond stub status as the ICR Discovery Center article - perhaps even less so, as most of these players have died, while the Center has just opened and has the potential for additional coverage of related events. An appeal to precedent may sound like WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but saying it should be merged despite sufficient sourcing just because it's short sounds a lot like WP:IDON'TLIKEIT to me. If, as XOR'easter ( talk · contribs) contends, there's nothing really harmful about leaving it as a short article, then I'm inclined to leave it as-is. There's some marginal benefit to having the facility show up in its related categories, imo. YMMV. Acdixon ( talk · contribs) 15:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Another COVID "critic". May need more knowledgeable watchers. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 09:04, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
See [15] Interesting conclusion:"Demand-driven looting matters, and archaeologists, scientific journals, media outlets, and the public should never blindly and blithely support or foster these activities through clickbait claims based on pseudoscience." And earlier in the article, "when Boslough noted on Twitter that “pottery shards from Sodom and Gomorrah would have a much greater market value than shards from some random unidentified site,” Collins dismissed this salient concern, against all evidence. He responded, “Poppycock.”" Doug Weller talk 11:18, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Recent edits seem highly dubious to me.
is connected. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#User:Rp2006 and something at RSN about Skeptical Inquirer. 12:47, 7 January 2022 (UTC) Doug Weller talk 12:47, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Anybody want to comb through all the articles about astral, causal, etheric, subtle, mental, and illusory bodies and their relations to each other? Do we need to map the fantasies of Blavatsky, Steiner, and some Asians from pre-scientific times (or later, but with the same attitude) into an interconnected web? If yes, how should it be organized?
Do we use the signs of the zodiac from different cultures as a precedent for this, with one article per body, or more obscure fantasy worldviews where we omit details of this granularity?
I fall asleep after half a sentence of anthroposophic gobbledigook, so I am not the right person for this. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 22:13, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Main Question: Are South Africans and international media rejecting name changes?
There has been a debate on Wikipedia for years as to whether or not South Africans are actively rejecting place names. All evidence I can find points to this being a South African conspiracy theory directly related to dissatisfaction following the end of apartheid. No other countries have had this many problems with name changes on Wikipedia. This post is for all renamed places in South Africa.
List of renamed places in Namibia and Nur-Sultan are just two examples that do not have this same issue.
A good starting point is List of renamed places in South Africa. Virtually every place on that list has had discussion about whether the new name is in use or not. Some names were changed over a decade ago and still do not have their page updated because it is not the WP:COMMONNAME. It does not make sense for Wikipedia to not use the name on street signs and used by media.
These articles highlight the protests from white Afrikaners who feel like their culture is being erased. All of these articles highlight the fact that these protests are almost exclusively voiced by white South Africans, who are a small minority within South Africa.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2002-03-02-0203020118-story.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4584211.stm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/28/southafrica.rorycarroll
These are all academic articles highlighting the debates in South Africa over name changes.
https://journals-sagepub-com.libproxy.unm.edu/doi/pdf/10.1068/d2112
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02572117.2007.10587293?needAccess=true
Significant evidence supports an understanding that these name changes are here to stay and in use by reliable, English language sources. These are all videos of South African media using the new names.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBVAAMGYBZo&t=99s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdzan5g9A9M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XqnFQckkH0 - Afriforum leader opposes name changes
There is no reason to debate all 500+ name changes when it is clear that the only significant opposition these names have are from a small minority of South African society. If an English speaking South African uses Wikipedia, then oftentimes the name on the Wikipedia page won't match the name used on street signs and in media. Letting these fringe views proliferate makes Wikipedia worse. Desertambition ( talk) 21:20, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm uncertain about this large edit. [16] It's actually not much about slavery but mainly about the Exodus, adding text from Richard Elliott Friedman and changing "Modern archaeologists do not believe the Israelites were ever in ancient Egypt in significant numbers and were indigenous to Canaan." to "Some archaeologists and historians doubt that Israelites were ever in ancient Egypt in significant numbers, and most archaeologists agree that the ancient Israelite culture was indigenous to Canaan." @ Aminomancer: it's the word "some" that bothers me, as I believe that the mainstream view is that they were not there in significant numbers. Doug Weller talk 08:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Could use more eyes on this one. Lots of newer editors arriving on the talk page. – Novem Linguae ( talk) 23:59, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Might be worth a look or adding to watchlist if the subject is of interest. Doug Weller talk 17:00, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Is this really a separate thing from GWPF? Its article suggests it's just a "rebrand". Anyhow mentioning it here because "[t]he group says that they should be called "climate change sceptics", not "deniers"." -- JBL ( talk) 15:54, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
The source is a tripod link which doesn't seem to back it up anyway. I couldn't find anything except woowoo. Doug Weller talk 14:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Just noticed this: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Columns at Skeptical Inquirer
From past experience, there will be people who WP:CLAIM [sic!] that my posting this here is canvassing. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 12:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
It discusses how much social media is spreading these ideas, and this is also interesting: "researchers like Miami University’s Card fear that for some people, alternative history — especially the belief that archaeologists are conspiring to hide the truth from the public — can be a gateway to other kinds of misinformation." [21] Doug Weller talk 17:18, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
References
The prejudice against mātauranga as science derives from historical attitudes and concepts of Enlightenment science and that it is concerned about the history of science rather than the current scientific method.
There seems to be a kerfuffle in New Zealand, with the Royal Society there claiming that Mātauranga Māori is a "way of knowing" on par with science, and scientists being admonished for disagreeing. Jerry Coyne has been writing about it on [22] for a while, comparing it with the conflict between creationism and science in the US. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:59, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
Certain kinds of folk knowledge are valid and priceless. Others are at best metaphors and codifiers. Ethnomedicine, yes; astrophysics, no.) There are ways that "indigenous knowledge" could fit into a science class taught with a historical perspective, just like introductory college physics explains Ptolemaic epicycles. In turn, it is very easy to portray neutral-to-helpful efforts to do that kind of thing and make science more culturally engaging as nefarious attempts to devalue science. At a distance, through the haze of culture-warring, it can be hard to tell the former from the latter. This is particularly true when the efforts to do the former are described in public-relations pablum, in which the Royal Society Te Apārangi indulges as much as any Society. Coyne, who is willing to cite the Daily Mail on this, seems a poor starting point for a genuinely messy topic. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
European science does tend to unfairly discredit the knowledge of any other cultural group, without any regard for whether there's truth behind itsurely reinforces those associations.
The lede sentence about science was a bit garbled. The paper it references is actually quite good and identifies more than a few instances of the scientific method being applied in the context of this topic. I rewrote the sentence to align with this source, at least. jps ( talk) 03:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a request for retraction of the paper cited there "A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea" Some of the details are here which is of course not an RS, just bringing it here for information. Interesting that Trinity Southwest University is located in a strip mall. [23] Doug Weller talk 17:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
Relevant discussion at | → User talk:Aluxosm#Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis |
Turns out that User:Aluxosm (see above) has now written 57.4% of this page. A lot of it is now based on James L. Powell, a respected geologist who sounds like a really good guy, but he seems to have gone off-piste here. His book Deadly Voyager: The Ancient Comet Strike that Changed Earth and Human History is self-published and the praise of it here [25] is from someone's personal website. And I guess no surprise, Hancock is also used as a source in that paragraph. I have no idea why Powell is used as a source for the first sentence in the lead instead of the earlier reference. Younger Dryas is if anything a bit worse I think. Doug Weller talk 09:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Thoughts on whether this article as written is WP:PROFRINGE and possibly a WP:POVFORK for Male privilege?
Thanks, Generalrelative ( talk) 17:07, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
Just an update that the AfD has now become a target for SPAs, likely sock- or meatpuppets. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:14, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
New article from 6 Jan, of interest to this noticeboard:
Alexbrn ( talk) 21:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
Right now the information we provide might save lives, if anything validates wp:iar it is that. In a year's time it will be too late for many. We have a duty and an obligation (yes here I am invoking IAR to ignore wp:not) to help in the fight against Covidiocy and to help save lives. So I am no longer in any doubt, this list (or article either works) might help do that. As such I can see a value to it, more so than most of the rest of the content people fight so hard to keep. Slatersteven ( talk) 18:20, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
the brief appearance of names in news stories). I'd support an AFD and may nominate it myself if nobody else does so. Jr8825 • Talk 20:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
You know… I am not sure that I am clear on what this article is actually supposed to be about. From the title, it would appear that us is about the various deaths themselves. But on reading the lead, I would expect the article to be entitled something more along the lines of Media reaction to the deaths of Anti-vaccine advocates who died of Covid (as the lead focuses on “media reporting”). The body seems to be a “list” of media reports (albeit not in “list format”). So which is it? If the article is to survive a potential AFD nomination, it needs to more clearly define its topic and probably needs a complete overhaul once that topic is more clearly defined. Blueboar ( talk) 19:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
"repeated accusations that doctors are falsifying death certificates of people they looked after; that most of those patients died from other conditions and only “with” covid-19; or that most people with a covid diagnosis really just had a “false positive” test, despite the clinical features we could see"– this is about COVID-19 misinformation/conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy, not deaths of anti-vaxxers in the way that seems to have been discussed in the US. Jr8825 • Talk 05:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
This should all really be at the article talk page, not a tangentially related noticeboard. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 23:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
I think Jr8825's concern about SYNTH are sound. Many of the sources even in the body of the article look like they are sourced to articles about people who died rather than sources about the phenomena the article is supposed to be about. Also, recent edits here basically added a name to the article body [32]. The edit was correct in it made the link more obvious but the source for the claim was about the death, not the phenomena of these lists existing or being reported. More and more I don't see how this article won't evolve into just a list of people who editors feel should be included in one of the deleted lists. Springee ( talk) 17:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
A few comments: first, to me a title like Media reaction to the deaths of Anti-vaccine advocates who died of Covid sounds unnecessarily indirect. Whatever the article contains will be based upon media reports, so adding "Media reaction to the..." to the front of the title seems like moving COVID-19 to What reliable sources have to say about COVID-19. Maybe it's not completely redundant, but investing the extra words doesn't seem to buy enough extra clarity to be worthwhile. Also, I'm not sold on the idea that there is a WP:SYNTH problem (or at least one so fundamental that the article needs to be torched). Grouping together events that are obviously, manifestly related is mere juxtaposition. What new conclusion is supposedly being drawn here? To me, a true synthesis would require something like invoking these stories to bolster a claim about American culture that none of the sources themselves put forth. I'm just not seeing that in the text at hand. (Maybe this topic lends itself to such syntheses, but we don't delete articles just because the topic potentially risks violating NOR.) XOR'easter ( talk) 22:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I tend to agree that the actual direct media coverage of these deaths (both vaccinated and unvaccinated, each potentially fueling someone's agenda), and the navel-gazing on the actual ethics of it, probably belong more as a subsection on one of our articles about the topic. Trimming the length will make WP:SYNTH less appealing to try and pad out the article, and it lets us cover the trends of both the 'look at this unvaccinated person who could have avoided death' and the 'this person was vaccinated but died of COVID anyway' articles. Bakkster Man ( talk) 15:07, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I've nominated the related Herman Cain Award article for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Herman Cain Award. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 16:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I hope I didn’t miss seeing an earlier mention, if I did, sorry. Doug Weller talk 20:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
I have begun a discussion on the talk page of Animal cruelty and the Holocaust analogy regarding the lead images used in this article. Please see the images for yourself, and I would appreciate any input from this project's members. See Talk:Animal cruelty and the Holocaust analogy#Lead image used in article for further discussion.
Not sure if this totally relevant here, but since someone has cited WP:FRINGE on the talk page, I suppose it makes sense to alert people here (and it is usually fringe groups that make this comparison; most animal rights groups tend to steer away from overt Holocaust imagery or messaging). — AFreshStart ( talk) 22:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
An RfC which may be of interest to watchers of this page is currently ongoing at the linked talk page. Cheers, RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 03:29, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
More attention is needed on COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China where a couple of editors are outright censoring the fact that China deliberately underreported the covid-19 statistics despite the sentence being standing for 2 years.
They are relying on a study largely written by Chinese employees who work under Chinese government.
The discussion can be seen at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#The “2021 academic study”. TolWol56 ( talk) 06:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
Discussions can be advertised to noticeboards and WikiProjects to receive participation from interested uninvolved editors.
Posting a neutrally worded notice of the dispute on applicable noticeboards will make the dispute more visible to other editors who may have worthwhile opinions. I commend TolWol56 for bringing this dispute here and getting valuable feedback. China has also promoted TCM as a COVID-19 treatment [33], and even outlawed any criticism of it [34], which is why we avoid Chinese research on such subjects. CutePeach ( talk) 15:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
"They are relying on a study largely written by Chinese employees who work under Chinese government. ... But the research in question is meant to whitewash CCP's handling of Covid-19 thus it is not WP:RS."This does rings a few alarm bells. It is assuming too much about someone's nationality and discounting them, rather than simply being more cautious and attribute until fabrication claims are confirmed. FormalDude is correct:
"WP:INDEPENDENT is evaluated separately from WP:RELIABLE. A source not being independent does not automatically make it unreliable, though it sometimes makes it unsuitable for Wikipedia."And since we are using Western publications—the BJM, Nature—not Chinese publications, what is the issue other than their nationalities? It is getting close to conspiring and assuming too much, and bordering on xenophobia, even if I that is not the intent. It does look like "Right Great Wrongs" — if there is anything that appear to whitewash CCP's handling of COVID-19, it is not a reliable source, which is how conspiracy theories and misinformation thrives; even a broken clock is right twice a day, and
"[i]t is both the case that high quality research on Covid-19 has been done in China that does not raise alarm bells and there is evidence of pressure from the government that does. I think there is a need for increased caution, but sources need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis."Here, Jumpytoo gave a good analysis of those high-quality news outlets, and they either tell a different story or do not actually rely on experts in the field to support the statement in wikivoice.
"News outlets initially reported concerns that the Chinese government under-reported the extent of infections and deaths"would indeed be a more accurate and better summary, though I would not give all of them the same weight; some of it are much better than others. Davide King ( talk) 14:23, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
In January 2021, the user Springnuts ( talk · contribs) removed much of Three Gorges Dam#Structural integrity due to allegedly promoting a POV promulgated by one scientist based in Germany, Wang Weiluo (王維洛), and largely based on a Google Earth image allegedly showing deformation, and which was supported by news sources they deemed unreliable for science and engineering topics. However, it was re-added in November that year by an anonymous user from Sydney, who disputes the claim that it is undue. Neither the removal nor the re-adition was adequately discussed, so now I'm bringing the concern here. The reaction to the panic may be okay, but how much coverage and what kind of references should we use for details about the deformation? – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 04:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
{{
lang|zh|王維洛}}
as a shorter and standardized alternative to typing out <span lang=zh>王維洛</span>
. —
2d37 (
talk) 22:37, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
Another repressed memories thing. As these are fringe, the articles should written accordingly. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 13:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Recovered memory, in which a suppressed traumatic incident is recalled years later, has been one of the most disputed topics among mental-health professionals in the last 15 years. The American Psychological Association states that while "there is a consensus among memory researchers and clinicians that most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them," most leaders in the field also agree "that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later."Would language along those lines be sufficient to get across the fringeyness of recovered memories? Since it's in the source, I can just quote the APA without running afoul of WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 13:52, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
A discussion on this page might be of interest to editors here. 2600:1012:B002:3AB0:752F:5712:DD20:5C21 ( talk) 21:49, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
After failing to add POV and remove NPOV, user now demands third-party sources. Anybody familiar with false memories? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 08:36, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
they just didn't appear made in good-faithI disagree. If you are someone whose worldview includes any of these:
Wandered over to MfD and saw a ton of redirects being nominated for this article. Looking at the article it seems to just be an essay on the teachings. Tempted to send to AfD, but seems like the topic itself may be notable, just the content is inappropriate for an encyclopedia or at least the presentation. Anyway, coming here to get some eyes and opinions. Slywriter ( talk) 20:52, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
See here. I'm not reverting because there's no way I'm restoring Creation Safaris as a source, and I have other work to do more in my field of interest. Doug Weller talk 11:10, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Hello, Fringe Theories Noticeboard,
I apologize if this is an awkward choice of a first question for me to ask here, but: some months ago, I came across an article on a book, I thought the article seemed problematic, and I thought that I was too inexperienced an editor to diagnose exactly what its problems are and then fix them but, I recall thinking, the regulars at WP:FTN likely would have a better idea. I recall thinking that, if the book were fiction, one could say that the article's problem was that it appeared to be written from an MOS:INUNIVERSE perspective. I don't remember that the book was promoting any specific "known" fringe theories per se, but it seemed to be criticizing "science" as an institution and a worldview, and the article seemed to be restating the book's arguments uncritically, which seemed like the sort of thing that gets taken to FTN.
In the intervening time, I've forgotten the name of the book; I think its author was a man, British I think, whose name started with the letter 'E'. In case I do find the article again, does that sound like the sort of thing that belongs at this noticeboard?
— 2d37 ( talk) 03:44, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Schumacher points out that though we can recognize life and destroy it, we can't create it.
Schumacher explains that the bodily senses are adequate for perceiving inanimate matter; but we need 'intellectual' senses for other levels.
Schumacher notes that within philosophy there is no field in more disarray than ethics.
For Schumacher one of science's major mistakes has been rejecting the traditional philosophical and religious view that the universe is a hierarchy of being. Schumacher makes a restatement of the traditional chain of being.( Special:Permalink/1027048351 § Levels of being)
as an explanation for the development of consciousness, self-awareness, language, social institutions and the origin of life itself( Special:Permalink/1027048351 § Evolutionism)
life, consciousness and self-consciousnessultimately cannot be explained by science-as-we-know-it and, thus, (2) the existence of souls, or some such thing, to account for his posited
discontinuities. I don't mean I would want Soul to say "souls aren't real!", but I'm uncomfortable with the article's seemingly implying some such seemingly unfalsifiable concept is real (or, rather, is needed to explain reality) either — but enough of my own POV. I don't know where (if at all) #1 should fall on the spectrum of fringe theories if considered as science, let alone as philosophy. I'm more confident that #2 is undesired in wikivoice (or de-facto wikivoice — even if the claims are attributed to the author, his POV and the article's POV seem indistinct). — 2d37 ( talk) 19:16, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Patrol blimp in WW II crashed sans crew; the "theories" section plays up fringey ideas but ignores USNI explanations which are apparently too prosaic. I'm going to attempt a clean up but could use other eyes. Mangoe ( talk) 05:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Talk:List_of_Shakespeare_authorship_candidates#Recent_WP:SPS_additions. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 20:26, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
This is turning into an argument about Cheikh Anta Diop. Doug Weller talk 23:36, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
This new article, Mass formation, born out of a discussion here, seems to argue that supporters of COVID vaccination are a angry mob who are not acting rationally. Thoughts? - MrOllie ( talk) 14:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I got into a tiff at Robert W. Malone with a user wanting to include a somewhat long quote about this very thing. jps ( talk) 02:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Well, I'm back from a wikibreak and I see a bunch of sources that possibly could be discussed, but notice that the discussion at the article talkpage has been archived away with the text basically the same from before, so perhaps we're okay with the current text? Or maybe not. Anyway, hello everybody! jps ( talk) 22:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Anyone know much about him? I wasn’t sure of the recent edits, and just looking at the lead there are some statements that probably at least need attribution. I didn’t get further than the lead as I’m off to bed. Doug Weller talk 21:22, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
founded the radiocarbon laboratory of Dakar, which specialized in the dating of Africa’s oldest archaeological and geological materials. Continuing his scientific work during the 1960s, he published Le Laboratoire de Radiocarbone de l’IFAN (1968, The Radiocarbon Laboratory at IFAN) and Physique Nucléaire et Chronologie Absolue (1974, Nuclear Physics and Absolute Dating). In these works he discussed IFAN, his scientific work there, and diverse methods of dating archaeological and geological samples, especially those used in research at IFAN.That's not to say that many of his ideas about race and history aren’t FRINGE. Clearly they are. It's also not to say that he made contributions to theoretical physics. But let's refrain from sneering at the man's real accomplishments. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:19, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
N.b. Diop is certainly well known in Black Studies circles. For example, he is listed as one of the forerunners of Asante's proposals. He is famous for adopting certain approaches that now read, if not quaint, then outright blinkered, but this needs to be seen in the light of the 1950s and 60s thrall of scientific racism within history, anthropology, and Egyptology. His opponents spent much of their time arguing, without any hint of self-reflection, that Egyptians were *actually* members of the "white race". The counter by Diop, somewhat spectacularly, was to use that very (what we now see as) pseudoscience on its own terms to show that they were Black. I think he probably was something of a race realist himself, but he did not live long enough to engage with the scholarship that showed how race is a social construct rather than a validated biological identifier. jps ( talk) 21:23, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
I've got a paper from this source [41] called Gunung Padang and the Indo-Malaysian megalithism: archaeology and Pseudoarchaeology which looks really useful to edit Gunung Padang (note I am finding this promoted in other articles as ridiculously old). But it's in Spanish and I don't have anything that will translate a multi-page document. Anyone? Too much work to do by hand. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 07:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
I want to add stronger warnings against the use of predatory journals / explanations for why those should not be cited on Wikipedia. Others disagree. Please comment. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 16:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Not sure what's going on here [43] but seems to be part of an extensive WP:GEVAL push. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 18:33, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
I have started a discussion over whether whether Wikipedia should describe psychics or mediums as "claimed", "self-purported", etc. Obviously, I do not think Wikipedia should be promoting fringe claims of individuals, but I am concerned that (a) the policy is being applied inconsistently here, and (b) co-ordinated editing, as related to the ongoing arb case, may be influencing decisions here. As this relates to fringe theories, I thought it would be of note to editors here. Thank you. — AFreshStart ( talk) 14:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
New editor plans to add authors supporting him. [44] Doug Weller talk 17:05, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
So exactly what is the problem with a new editor adding sourced material to an article? BRealAlways ( talk) 23:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
It would be nice to have some additional input at Talk:Brian_Rose_(podcaster)#RfC_on_text_around_conspiracy_theories to get a clearer decision one way or the other. Bondegezou ( talk) 11:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Can some people here take a look at Bechor Zvi Aminoff, Aminoff Suffering Syndrome and Aminoff Entropy definition of Human Happiness and Suffering. It all seems extremely fringey to me, and probably not notable at all, but I might be missing something so I prefered to ask here instead of tagging for deletion immediately. Apart from the lack of independent references, warning bells included "He was awarded an Honorary Doctor degree of the Yorker International University" ("a for-profit unaccredited institution": "The institution has no professors and, on the basis of life experiences, issues Master's degrees and even PhDs in several fields.") and " awarded a Research Professor Degree from the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England." ("Government consumer advocates have described it as a "scam"[3] or as "pretty tacky".", "The International Biographical Centre creates "awards" and offers them widely. In 2004, an award was said to cost the recipient US$495 or £295,") Fram ( talk) 09:36, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
See the latest edit at Talk:Joseph Justus Scaliger#False history creator by User:BRealAlways Three edits at Talk:Anatoly Fomenko by the same editor, and another at Talk:Joseph Justus Scaliger (including for instance "archaeologists already have evidence that some form of advanced technology was used worldwide." and an accusation that archaeologists are covering something up. I'll notify the editor. Doug Weller talk 16:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Doug Weller: "and an accusation that archaeologists are covering something up." I never said archaeologists were covering anything up. When I said, "..., which begs the question whether archaeologists are covering up something for convenience sake.", that is not an accusation. It is the application of skepticism in view of evidence [ [45]]. Just as a common perception that "the religious" will filter evidence according to their world view, the "anti-religious" may slant evidence in their favor as an antithetical response based on their beliefs. This is the basis of information inclusion and omission. While some of my talk edits may have been inappropriate, how does this vilify those who essentially do the same thing in the opposite direction? User:PaleoNeonate I can understand your concern that things go smoothly here. I had one editor tell me "We're not a blog, we're not here to promote any ideology." I can appreciate that, yet I continue to see clear violations of the "working together" rule. To say this has nothing to do with an ideology is presumptive. If you are to "make an example of some", or even one, I see that as selective when it doesn't apply to all. From what I can see, you're being selective about who you warn of violations. The goal of these actions can be either good faith presuming innocence until proven guilty, or more of an "I'll stand on his toes until he gets sufficiently irritated". Using a position of power (WP admin) to accomplish the task of discouraging others is contemptible, and must be accompanied by a motive. I am sincerely hoping this is not the case, and your edits are honestly intended to promote good will among editors. I will have to say that it doesn't seem to be the case, but I could be wrong. I am fully aware of internet subculture movements. They allow actors to play roles in places they would otherwise not have access to. I would like to continue to contribute to making WP articles better. The tag-team approach I have been seeing doesn't give me much confidence that WP has placed proper controls in appropriate places. Specifically, I am not seeing why it would be necessary for me to feel that I must defend myself in this productive environment. BRealAlways ( talk) 04:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
References
Complaint on the Talk page: This article presents Steiner's work as wildly accepted and does not ground it in a wider scientific or philosophical contexts where his work has largely been dismissed
I must say that complaint has merit. The Reception section contains nothing about his adherence to - at the time already - obsolete scientific ideas and all the crazy stuff based on his clairvoyance, and the "Judaism" part is a mix of reception of other ideas by him and his ideas by others - including Nazis. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 18:07, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a ton of good research out there, as an administrator noted long ago, and that's why the vast majority of the citations are to verifiable sources from outside the anthroposophic/Waldorf movement. (The exceptions are exclusively used for facts (numbers of institutions, etc.) that are acceptable under WP:SELFSOURCE.)
Interesting that the recent storm of criticism of the article's text is itself not citing verifiable sources. Clean Copy talk 01:20, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Rudolf Steiner joined the Nazi party in its early daystgeorgescu ( talk) 04:19, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construedpart was meant to cover things like pesticides, organic, etc. where a lot of pseudoscience comes up. More at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#Discretionary_Sanctions. Plus, there's always the straight up pseudoscience DS too. KoA ( talk) 22:12, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Clean Copy and 23mason have already been warned of discretionary sanctions for pseudoscience and alternative medicine. tgeorgescu ( talk) 23:13, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience".tgeorgescu ( talk) 03:12, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Just came across:
Including a link to Amazon "reviews". Yikes. Alexbrn ( talk) 20:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Drbogdan is reverting my attempts to clean up the lead of the Abiogenesis article by removing the paragraph on Panspermia, which inappropriately presents it as a mainstream scholarly view rather than the fringe theory it actually is. It's also not actually relevant as panspermia does not deal with the creation of life to begin with. As noted at Talk:Abiogenesis#Article's_length,_style,_and_complexity Abiogenesis is the #1345 longest article on Wikipedia and is a total incoherent dumpster fire. It needs to be nuked from orbit and rewritten from scratch. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 04:00, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
dozens of peer-reviewed papersdoesn't prevent a theory from being considered WP:FRINGE/ALT. At which point
They should not be classified as pseudoscience but should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective.If it's a non-mainstream view, we should describe it as such. Having strong peer-reviewed sources helps define that it's good science, just not as widely accepted an explanation as others. Bakkster Man ( talk) 14:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
Some day panspermia will be properly demarcated between the outre, wacky, but vaguely plausible (life came from mars on meteorites) and the outright crankish (the ISM is freeze-dried bacteria). I am something of the opinion that it deserves mention in the context of astrobiology rather than abiogenesis. As far as I know, there are no serious biologists working on panspermia in the context of abiogenesis and therefore is improperly WP:WEIGHTed for inclusion there at all. On the other hand, there are a number of textbooks on astrobiology which make the briefest of mentions of panspermia, so I suppose we can follow their lead. jps ( talk) 21:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
The alternative panspermia hypothesis speculates that microscopic life arose outside Earth by unknown mechanisms, and spread to the early Earth on space dust and meteoroids. It is known that complex organic molecules occur in the Solar System and in interstellar space, and these molecules may have provided starting material for the development of life on Earth.
With the evidence of the presence of organic molecules in space, soft panspermia theories emerged, which argued that pre-biotic molecules originate from space. These theories upheld that the extraterrestrial pre-biotic molecules were distributed on earth when life began (abiogenesis). Recent studies investigated the isotopic ratio of chlorine in oceanic dorsal in order to find evidence of the formation of the ocean. It was concluded that most of the water on Earth has an extraterrestrial origin. Pre-biotic molecules such as amino acids may have arrived on earth within this water.Viriditas ( talk) 22:44, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The current consensus is that Earth acquired most its water by accretion of carbonaceous chondrite material, particularly CI-like chondrites, from beyond the snow line in the solar nebula.[48], no idea if that any bearing on "soft" panspermia. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 22:54, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
the idea that organic chemicals formed in interstellar space, became incorporated into the cloud of gas and dust from which the Sun formed and thereby seeded the Earth and other planets with the raw materials from which life could originate.Viriditas ( talk) 23:34, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The related Cosmic ancestry article has been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cosmic ancestry. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 00:27, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Climate change driving evolution so fast that animals are changing in weeks.The book discussed is by Thor Hanson (biologist). Doug Weller talk 14:51, 5 February 2022 (UTC)