This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Update on this... there is now Template:Perpetual motion machine created by User:Perpetual motion machine, whose contributions William M. Connolley 21:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Template:Perpetual motion machine now got misleadingly stuck at Cox's timepiece. And at Axletree Dynamo, an article which sets new standards on not defining its lemma. So it's [Axletree Dynamo on AfD] now. -- Pjacobi 23:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
This has moved back up to the top of my to-do list. Before I make changes, does anyone besides User:Ragesoss see merit in the changes User:Perpetual motion machine made to the way perpetual motion machines are flagged? People have managed to change my opinions by rational debate in the past, so I don't want to pull the trigger on the new template if anyone else _does_ think it's better. I don't see why the disclaimer was moved to the talk page, and I don't see what this new template does that the "disputed science" infobox template didn't do.
I'll also gladly accept proposals for new alternate solutions.
To answer User:Ragesoss's original objection, in theory, the disclaimer template wouldn't be needed at all. However, as WMC pointed out in the original thread about it, it's next to impossible to keep a heavily-contested perpetual motion article's introduction neutral. -- Christopher Thomas 00:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Perpetual motion machine: {{{name}}} | |
---|---|
Forces Exploited: |
{{{forces}}} |
Proposed Mechanism: | |
{{{claims}}} | |
Year Proposed: | {{{origyear}}} |
Original Proponents: |
{{{origprop}}} |
Current Proponents: |
{{{currentprop}}} |
{{{name}}} is a form of perpetual motion machine. Such machines violate the known laws of physics (most notably conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, and the first and second laws of thermodynamics). Claims of the development of such devices are considered pseudoscience by most scientists. |
Having very reluctantly concluded that Wikipedia classic is doomed to the same inexorable degradation which we saw on newsgroups (projects like this one being at best a desperate rearguard holding action, as it were), I was encouraged to see that Larry Sanger is apparently involved in a forthcoming competitor to Wikipedia. According to the article Sanger intends Digital Universe to be more reliable than Wikipedia. Among other things, it is to rely on experts to exercise editorial control.
That sounded great! At least, until I noticed that the president of Digital Universe and also of ManyOne Networks (which is touted as the webhost for Digital Universe) is none other than Bernard Haisch.
Who is Bernard Haisch? Well, for starters see:
Haisch apparently also operates something called the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics. The mission statement of this organization says The California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics (CIPA) focuses on research in electrodynamics, relativity, gravitation, inertia and the quantum vacuum zero... Google suggests it is mostly a collection of Haisch's papers. BTW, it seems that this organization may consist solely of Haisch himself, but I didn't try to verify that impression.
I don't want to be charged with trying to tar Haisch with guilt by association, but I think it bears mentioning that Haisch is apparently married to one Marsha Sims, who edits something called Journal of Scientific Exploration, which is published by the Society for Scientific Exploration, whose mission statement reads The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) exists to foster the serious and rational study of all questions that are amenable to scientific investigation, without restriction. The Society publishes a peer reviewed journal, the Journal of Scientific Exploration.... And what does JSE publish? Well, the very first paper I came across was:
I don't know what anomalous cognition is supposed to be, but it sure sounds like a pseudoscientific codeword for ESP or something like that. The next few articles I found were titled:
...well, you get the idea. I seem to recall recently seeing a citation of an article on an exploration to find the Yeti in this journal too... IIRC, a preceding editor of this journal was one Henry Bauer, author of The Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery and Scientific Literacy and The Myth of the Scientific Method.
OK, like I say, make of this what you will. The apparent link with JSE doesn't prove anything about Haisch but in context I think it does raise some questions about just what kind of "expert" Digital Universe has sought out to "guide" its article creation.
And now for some comic relief. As a rather silly example of crank POV pushing, see Dennis Overbye's slam of a new film touting quantum conciousness in today's New York Times. I think we can expect to see future edits by an anon linking this cranky film to various otherwise legitimate physics articles, just as happened for its predecessor (mentioned in the Overbye piece).
But there is a serious point here: at least some cranks read the newspaper too, and I think they can see how much trouble political pressure groups like the Discovery Institute have created for working scientists, and I think its given them ideas. See organizations like Archive Freedom. I fear that it would be grave mistake for the leaders of mainstream science to underestimate the amount of time they will have to spend in the future trying to argue the case for real science in front of policy makers, courts of law, and legislators.
Coments?--- CH 18:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I have just created Bernard Haisch and have added much information to Journal of Scientific Exploration. --- CH 01:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Rotating magnetic field has flared up again... its a telsaphile magnet; has been a redirect for ages, now resurrected by user RMF and the talk page unexplainedly "archived" William M. Connolley 18:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
User:Perpetual motion machine ( talk • contribs) returns to Cox's timepiece (briefly mentioned above) and insists that it's a working "perpetual motion machine". I'm not in the mood to further argue with this guy's ramblings and twisted definitions, especially since any points I could make would get attacked as NPOV anyway (in a style that I suppose might be reddily recognizable to those with more experience in handling it than I have). Could somebody be so kind as to tell him that his oh-so-neutral interpretation of the second law is, what was that b-word, bunk please? Femto 17:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, I am ccing here a message I just left in Talk:WikiProject Physics because I think it should be of interest to members of this project also:
Hi all, a new user, Haisch ( talk · contribs), who is in real life fringe physicist Bernard Haisch, is edit warring regarding his wikibiography Bernard Haisch and some articles in which he has an interest, Journal of Scientific Exploration and Stochastic electrodynamics. Please see also his user talk page, my user talk page, and the Paul August's user talk page.
Haisch also edits as an anon from the pltn13.pacbell.net domain (Southwestern Bell InterNet Services; geolocated in San Jose, CA)
Important note: the pltn13.pacbell.net domain has also been used by Jack Sarfatti, who as you all know has been permabanned. I'd like to avoid that kind of mess from repeating itself with Haisch. In any case, be aware that Sarfatti continues to occassionaly edit as an anon, and ironically he has also used this domain. Even more ironically, Sarfatti doesn't care for Haisch and myself have sometimes reverted sarcastic comments by the Sarfatti anon in various articles mentioning Haisch! (Just to add to the confusion, another user (apparently), DrMorelos ( talk · contribs) apparently also edits as the anon 69.109.222.23 ( talk · contribs) and claims to have earned a Ph.D. from an American University and mentions other things which fit both Sarfatti and Haisch. However, DrMorelos appears to have distinct fringe science interests.)
Returning to the edit war by Haisch: I feel (see the talk pages) that I have bent over backwards to
Remarkably, in a comment on my user talk page and without any prompting from me, Haisch himself raised the issue which most concerns me about allowing persons to edit articles about controversial "scientific" topics in which they are directly involved:
If I go and seek funding from a philanthropic organization for the Digital Universe Foundation, as I am doing, and they look me up on Wikipedia, your negativity may cost me a grant... and I will never know that. Make no mistake about it. Wikipedia has tremendous influence, and that is precisely why must be both accurate and fair. The Wikipedia is perceived as no mere gossip sheet. Your words could deprive my organization of a million dollar grant because of your implicit judgment of my scientific career.
Needless to say, the issue which troubles me is that Haisch implicitly admits to a million dollar financial incentive :-/ to slant the WP in a pro-Haisch manner. I find this deeply disturbing.
In the matter of Bernard Haisch, the original version of which I wrote and which Haisch keeps rewriting, I told him several times (and followed through on my promise) that I am willing to discuss his objections line by line. I told him that I feel it is in the best interests of WP readers (and even himself) that he restrict his comments on articles on controversial topics in which he is directly involved to the talk page, but let me implement any changes in the article itself. I have been through several iterations of this with him already, and have made a handful of minor factual corrections he suggested and also made other changes. However, Haisch seems to insist on editing his own biography, an despite repeated polite warnings, he continues to leave insulting messages in various talk pages, which makes discussions with him unpleasant. He also continues to edit his own biography (breaking up the flow of ideas and adding a pro-Haisch slant). I have asked him to take a break for a few days to calm down but he also appears unwilling to try this. Please help me discourage him from edit warring until he calms down enough to respect WP:CIV. TIA --- CH 18:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I have begun a discussion of NPOV issues related to this group here. -- ScienceApologist 14:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I've just noticed that Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Pseudoscience/to_do has gone missing. Nothing turned up checking for an AfD. Could one of the admins lurking here check the deletion log to see why it was pruned, and by whom? -- Christopher Thomas 23:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Dunno if anyone other than the Chris Hillman and Christopher Thomas are still reading this, but this article is a real problem in terms of presenting pseudoscience as respectable, misstatements of fact, and so on. --- CH 20:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I've created a banner template for talk pages, somewhat as a test, at Template:WikiProject Pseudoscience. I'm not convinced that this is a good idea. It would increase our visibility, and might attract other helpful editors to the project - I do know there are quite a few people who probably aren't part of it only because they don't know that it exists. On the other hand, it might cause some controversy, though it would at least be on the talk page. There is also the question of what articles to apply it to - just physics-type pseudoscience, or articles like Astrology as well? For fun and to see the results, I might try addng it to Astrology, which is undergoing a large pseudoscience/not pseudoscience debate. -- Philosophus T 14:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
An editor here keeps removing a "scientists consider Reiki to be pseudoscience" statement in the introduction since the editor claims that it is not relevant. It would be nice if someone else could look into this. A similar discussion is also taking place at Talk:Astrology, by the same editor. Essentially, the argument is that since supporters of the two areas don't claim that they are scientific "in the modern sense" (but Astrology can still be "the oldest, and best documented science in the history of humankind"), any view that the topics are pseudoscientific doesn't matter. -- Philosophus T 01:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
For many pseudo-scientific theories (I have in mind the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, there is very little in the way of published papers debunking the ideas...anyone who knows about the science in question can read the theory and realise it's patently obvious that it is rubbish, but no-one is bothered to sit and pick it apart and publish. How does one introduce the idea that the theory is bunk, without performing "original research", if there are no references to cite? Obviously, this goes for many pseudoscientific theories, so laying out some established method would be a good idea.-- Byrgenwulf 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, me lord! The Paulian "not even wrong" epithet certainly applies to the CTMU...and it smacks of the Bogdanoffs/Sokal hoax. The article is so littered with abused terminology that it is likely to awe and wow the layman into believing that it must be true. The problem is that is has been published, in the notorious ID journal, but whenever I try to provide (with links and damned good references, mind!) the scientific community's consensus view on the nature of that journal, my edits are just reverted. Maybe I should just give up. -- Byrgenwulf 13:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Science section of Astrology is highly prone to POV changes and insertion of pseudoscience. Could someone take a look at it please? Jefffire 14:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
This article now ("temporarily") states:
For a pseudoscientific theory to be important, it has to have the paper trail to be encyclopedic, and have other scientists publish in response, or cite its articles.
It had in addition the following unacceptable claims (I moved that here for discussion):
Threshold is lower if the published articles are rebuttals. Threshold is higher if the published articles agree with the pseudoscience work, as this could just be collusion in a tight-knit group of pseudoscientists.
I propose to either replace it with nothing, or perhaps with something like:
Editors should realise that if a published article is a rebuttal, it could be simply based on prejudice. Inversely, if a published article agrees with what generally is considered to be pseudoscience, its sole purpose could be to support befriended pseudoscientists.
I have not seen such a remark in the NPOV rules; instead it is common and accepted that claimed advantages of theories are expoused in the article space. Thus I think this needs a little reformulation.
Harald88 19:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to User:MrDolomite for this priceless quote:
This saved my day, which started getting an Amazon advertisement mail:
Aaaaaarrrggghhh.
Pjacobi 21:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I realize that this is somewhat removed from the original physics focus of the project, but a few editors brought this article up on IRC as having problems with pseudoscience and POV editing issues similar to other articles we have dealt with. I'm not really in a condition to evaluate those statements right now, but am putting it here anyway, so that others can look at it. -- Philosophus T 11:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
The Australian Ufology is apparently not on the watchlist because it was nominated for Good article status! I have read it and found it miserably failed to come even close to the criteria. I thought people involved in this project might like to know. Pascal.Tesson 03:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, you might be interested in this MfD. --- CH 23:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm the last one to notice this, but I just noticed, how valuable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch is to find articles which may need attention. Examples:
Pjacobi 19:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Our friend from 134.193.* is at it again. Signing off now, someone want to handle this? Femto 18:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The article on Orthomolecular medicine is currently embroiled in a very verbose, very contentious edit war. A helping hand from rational clear thinkers is needed. Caution: I am finding that a band of kooks and cranks are now attacking me on my own talk page; so getting involved may be hazardous for your nerves. linas 15:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Milo Wolff, then Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-08-06#Milo_Wolff. Note that Solmil ( talk · contribs) previously created Myron Evans, misleadingly portarying him as a mainstream, a ludicrously misleading claim. Solmil might be a sock for Haselhurst ( talk · contribs).--- CH 03:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
User:Bubba73 pointed out to me that this AfD resulted in keep! I can't find evidence of a second AfD. Maybe the article is now a red link because it was prod'd? --- CH 03:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Article for deletion: EmDrive linas 04:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Of possible interest to contributors here is this bit about "New Scientist" magazine. -- ScienceApologist 13:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I note with growing concern that this page increasingly resembles a diatribe written by someone with a serious grudge against Evans.
Don't worry, I am not going over to the dark side--- far from it--- but I have become increasingly alarmed about edits by a group of users (apparently single purpose accounts used only to edit this article):
Inquiries on their talk pages about their identity IRL and their personal connection to Evans have so far not yielded satisfactory answers. I fear that these users appear to constitute a group of meatpuppets (or sockpuppets), and they appear unable or unwilling to explain why they feel that Evans (who to me seems a very minor crank of little importance in the big picture) warrants a steadily growing article with two dozen links to the half-crazed AIAS blog (hardly a reliable source!) but remarkably little hard information. While these users no doubt feel they are "fighting the good fight", I am concerned that they have lost sight of the goals of the Wikipedia.
I believe that User:Pjacobi has come to similar conclusions, but unfortunately I just saw a message on his user talk page stating that he will be AFW (away from Wikipedia) for several days.
I have some additional concerns about this situation which I think I should only mention in emails to users I have come to know and trust.
Anyway, I am proposing at Talk:Myron Evans to stubbify the article and cut down the links to perhaps three links:
Comments would be welcome at Talk:Myron Evans.--- CH 04:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Update: Pjacobi did a fine job of stubbyfing the godawful mess at Myron Evans. Then I remembered a second and redundant article, Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS, the Evans "research institute"), and nominated it for deletion.--- CH 00:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
As I just wrote on the WikiProject Physics Talk page, the article Heim theory has been proposed for deletion. Comment as you see fit. Anville 13:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
The subject of this article seems to be of a highly questionable nature, and the article does not have any reliable and reputable sources. I have thus nominated it for deletion here. I expect that others will be able to investigate the matter more thoroughly. -- Constantine Evans 13:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Update on this... there is now Template:Perpetual motion machine created by User:Perpetual motion machine, whose contributions William M. Connolley 21:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Template:Perpetual motion machine now got misleadingly stuck at Cox's timepiece. And at Axletree Dynamo, an article which sets new standards on not defining its lemma. So it's [Axletree Dynamo on AfD] now. -- Pjacobi 23:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
This has moved back up to the top of my to-do list. Before I make changes, does anyone besides User:Ragesoss see merit in the changes User:Perpetual motion machine made to the way perpetual motion machines are flagged? People have managed to change my opinions by rational debate in the past, so I don't want to pull the trigger on the new template if anyone else _does_ think it's better. I don't see why the disclaimer was moved to the talk page, and I don't see what this new template does that the "disputed science" infobox template didn't do.
I'll also gladly accept proposals for new alternate solutions.
To answer User:Ragesoss's original objection, in theory, the disclaimer template wouldn't be needed at all. However, as WMC pointed out in the original thread about it, it's next to impossible to keep a heavily-contested perpetual motion article's introduction neutral. -- Christopher Thomas 00:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Perpetual motion machine: {{{name}}} | |
---|---|
Forces Exploited: |
{{{forces}}} |
Proposed Mechanism: | |
{{{claims}}} | |
Year Proposed: | {{{origyear}}} |
Original Proponents: |
{{{origprop}}} |
Current Proponents: |
{{{currentprop}}} |
{{{name}}} is a form of perpetual motion machine. Such machines violate the known laws of physics (most notably conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, and the first and second laws of thermodynamics). Claims of the development of such devices are considered pseudoscience by most scientists. |
Having very reluctantly concluded that Wikipedia classic is doomed to the same inexorable degradation which we saw on newsgroups (projects like this one being at best a desperate rearguard holding action, as it were), I was encouraged to see that Larry Sanger is apparently involved in a forthcoming competitor to Wikipedia. According to the article Sanger intends Digital Universe to be more reliable than Wikipedia. Among other things, it is to rely on experts to exercise editorial control.
That sounded great! At least, until I noticed that the president of Digital Universe and also of ManyOne Networks (which is touted as the webhost for Digital Universe) is none other than Bernard Haisch.
Who is Bernard Haisch? Well, for starters see:
Haisch apparently also operates something called the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics. The mission statement of this organization says The California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics (CIPA) focuses on research in electrodynamics, relativity, gravitation, inertia and the quantum vacuum zero... Google suggests it is mostly a collection of Haisch's papers. BTW, it seems that this organization may consist solely of Haisch himself, but I didn't try to verify that impression.
I don't want to be charged with trying to tar Haisch with guilt by association, but I think it bears mentioning that Haisch is apparently married to one Marsha Sims, who edits something called Journal of Scientific Exploration, which is published by the Society for Scientific Exploration, whose mission statement reads The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) exists to foster the serious and rational study of all questions that are amenable to scientific investigation, without restriction. The Society publishes a peer reviewed journal, the Journal of Scientific Exploration.... And what does JSE publish? Well, the very first paper I came across was:
I don't know what anomalous cognition is supposed to be, but it sure sounds like a pseudoscientific codeword for ESP or something like that. The next few articles I found were titled:
...well, you get the idea. I seem to recall recently seeing a citation of an article on an exploration to find the Yeti in this journal too... IIRC, a preceding editor of this journal was one Henry Bauer, author of The Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery and Scientific Literacy and The Myth of the Scientific Method.
OK, like I say, make of this what you will. The apparent link with JSE doesn't prove anything about Haisch but in context I think it does raise some questions about just what kind of "expert" Digital Universe has sought out to "guide" its article creation.
And now for some comic relief. As a rather silly example of crank POV pushing, see Dennis Overbye's slam of a new film touting quantum conciousness in today's New York Times. I think we can expect to see future edits by an anon linking this cranky film to various otherwise legitimate physics articles, just as happened for its predecessor (mentioned in the Overbye piece).
But there is a serious point here: at least some cranks read the newspaper too, and I think they can see how much trouble political pressure groups like the Discovery Institute have created for working scientists, and I think its given them ideas. See organizations like Archive Freedom. I fear that it would be grave mistake for the leaders of mainstream science to underestimate the amount of time they will have to spend in the future trying to argue the case for real science in front of policy makers, courts of law, and legislators.
Coments?--- CH 18:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I have just created Bernard Haisch and have added much information to Journal of Scientific Exploration. --- CH 01:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Rotating magnetic field has flared up again... its a telsaphile magnet; has been a redirect for ages, now resurrected by user RMF and the talk page unexplainedly "archived" William M. Connolley 18:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
User:Perpetual motion machine ( talk • contribs) returns to Cox's timepiece (briefly mentioned above) and insists that it's a working "perpetual motion machine". I'm not in the mood to further argue with this guy's ramblings and twisted definitions, especially since any points I could make would get attacked as NPOV anyway (in a style that I suppose might be reddily recognizable to those with more experience in handling it than I have). Could somebody be so kind as to tell him that his oh-so-neutral interpretation of the second law is, what was that b-word, bunk please? Femto 17:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, I am ccing here a message I just left in Talk:WikiProject Physics because I think it should be of interest to members of this project also:
Hi all, a new user, Haisch ( talk · contribs), who is in real life fringe physicist Bernard Haisch, is edit warring regarding his wikibiography Bernard Haisch and some articles in which he has an interest, Journal of Scientific Exploration and Stochastic electrodynamics. Please see also his user talk page, my user talk page, and the Paul August's user talk page.
Haisch also edits as an anon from the pltn13.pacbell.net domain (Southwestern Bell InterNet Services; geolocated in San Jose, CA)
Important note: the pltn13.pacbell.net domain has also been used by Jack Sarfatti, who as you all know has been permabanned. I'd like to avoid that kind of mess from repeating itself with Haisch. In any case, be aware that Sarfatti continues to occassionaly edit as an anon, and ironically he has also used this domain. Even more ironically, Sarfatti doesn't care for Haisch and myself have sometimes reverted sarcastic comments by the Sarfatti anon in various articles mentioning Haisch! (Just to add to the confusion, another user (apparently), DrMorelos ( talk · contribs) apparently also edits as the anon 69.109.222.23 ( talk · contribs) and claims to have earned a Ph.D. from an American University and mentions other things which fit both Sarfatti and Haisch. However, DrMorelos appears to have distinct fringe science interests.)
Returning to the edit war by Haisch: I feel (see the talk pages) that I have bent over backwards to
Remarkably, in a comment on my user talk page and without any prompting from me, Haisch himself raised the issue which most concerns me about allowing persons to edit articles about controversial "scientific" topics in which they are directly involved:
If I go and seek funding from a philanthropic organization for the Digital Universe Foundation, as I am doing, and they look me up on Wikipedia, your negativity may cost me a grant... and I will never know that. Make no mistake about it. Wikipedia has tremendous influence, and that is precisely why must be both accurate and fair. The Wikipedia is perceived as no mere gossip sheet. Your words could deprive my organization of a million dollar grant because of your implicit judgment of my scientific career.
Needless to say, the issue which troubles me is that Haisch implicitly admits to a million dollar financial incentive :-/ to slant the WP in a pro-Haisch manner. I find this deeply disturbing.
In the matter of Bernard Haisch, the original version of which I wrote and which Haisch keeps rewriting, I told him several times (and followed through on my promise) that I am willing to discuss his objections line by line. I told him that I feel it is in the best interests of WP readers (and even himself) that he restrict his comments on articles on controversial topics in which he is directly involved to the talk page, but let me implement any changes in the article itself. I have been through several iterations of this with him already, and have made a handful of minor factual corrections he suggested and also made other changes. However, Haisch seems to insist on editing his own biography, an despite repeated polite warnings, he continues to leave insulting messages in various talk pages, which makes discussions with him unpleasant. He also continues to edit his own biography (breaking up the flow of ideas and adding a pro-Haisch slant). I have asked him to take a break for a few days to calm down but he also appears unwilling to try this. Please help me discourage him from edit warring until he calms down enough to respect WP:CIV. TIA --- CH 18:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I have begun a discussion of NPOV issues related to this group here. -- ScienceApologist 14:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I've just noticed that Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Pseudoscience/to_do has gone missing. Nothing turned up checking for an AfD. Could one of the admins lurking here check the deletion log to see why it was pruned, and by whom? -- Christopher Thomas 23:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Dunno if anyone other than the Chris Hillman and Christopher Thomas are still reading this, but this article is a real problem in terms of presenting pseudoscience as respectable, misstatements of fact, and so on. --- CH 20:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I've created a banner template for talk pages, somewhat as a test, at Template:WikiProject Pseudoscience. I'm not convinced that this is a good idea. It would increase our visibility, and might attract other helpful editors to the project - I do know there are quite a few people who probably aren't part of it only because they don't know that it exists. On the other hand, it might cause some controversy, though it would at least be on the talk page. There is also the question of what articles to apply it to - just physics-type pseudoscience, or articles like Astrology as well? For fun and to see the results, I might try addng it to Astrology, which is undergoing a large pseudoscience/not pseudoscience debate. -- Philosophus T 14:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
An editor here keeps removing a "scientists consider Reiki to be pseudoscience" statement in the introduction since the editor claims that it is not relevant. It would be nice if someone else could look into this. A similar discussion is also taking place at Talk:Astrology, by the same editor. Essentially, the argument is that since supporters of the two areas don't claim that they are scientific "in the modern sense" (but Astrology can still be "the oldest, and best documented science in the history of humankind"), any view that the topics are pseudoscientific doesn't matter. -- Philosophus T 01:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
For many pseudo-scientific theories (I have in mind the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, there is very little in the way of published papers debunking the ideas...anyone who knows about the science in question can read the theory and realise it's patently obvious that it is rubbish, but no-one is bothered to sit and pick it apart and publish. How does one introduce the idea that the theory is bunk, without performing "original research", if there are no references to cite? Obviously, this goes for many pseudoscientific theories, so laying out some established method would be a good idea.-- Byrgenwulf 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, me lord! The Paulian "not even wrong" epithet certainly applies to the CTMU...and it smacks of the Bogdanoffs/Sokal hoax. The article is so littered with abused terminology that it is likely to awe and wow the layman into believing that it must be true. The problem is that is has been published, in the notorious ID journal, but whenever I try to provide (with links and damned good references, mind!) the scientific community's consensus view on the nature of that journal, my edits are just reverted. Maybe I should just give up. -- Byrgenwulf 13:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Science section of Astrology is highly prone to POV changes and insertion of pseudoscience. Could someone take a look at it please? Jefffire 14:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
This article now ("temporarily") states:
For a pseudoscientific theory to be important, it has to have the paper trail to be encyclopedic, and have other scientists publish in response, or cite its articles.
It had in addition the following unacceptable claims (I moved that here for discussion):
Threshold is lower if the published articles are rebuttals. Threshold is higher if the published articles agree with the pseudoscience work, as this could just be collusion in a tight-knit group of pseudoscientists.
I propose to either replace it with nothing, or perhaps with something like:
Editors should realise that if a published article is a rebuttal, it could be simply based on prejudice. Inversely, if a published article agrees with what generally is considered to be pseudoscience, its sole purpose could be to support befriended pseudoscientists.
I have not seen such a remark in the NPOV rules; instead it is common and accepted that claimed advantages of theories are expoused in the article space. Thus I think this needs a little reformulation.
Harald88 19:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to User:MrDolomite for this priceless quote:
This saved my day, which started getting an Amazon advertisement mail:
Aaaaaarrrggghhh.
Pjacobi 21:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I realize that this is somewhat removed from the original physics focus of the project, but a few editors brought this article up on IRC as having problems with pseudoscience and POV editing issues similar to other articles we have dealt with. I'm not really in a condition to evaluate those statements right now, but am putting it here anyway, so that others can look at it. -- Philosophus T 11:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
The Australian Ufology is apparently not on the watchlist because it was nominated for Good article status! I have read it and found it miserably failed to come even close to the criteria. I thought people involved in this project might like to know. Pascal.Tesson 03:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, you might be interested in this MfD. --- CH 23:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm the last one to notice this, but I just noticed, how valuable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch is to find articles which may need attention. Examples:
Pjacobi 19:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Our friend from 134.193.* is at it again. Signing off now, someone want to handle this? Femto 18:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The article on Orthomolecular medicine is currently embroiled in a very verbose, very contentious edit war. A helping hand from rational clear thinkers is needed. Caution: I am finding that a band of kooks and cranks are now attacking me on my own talk page; so getting involved may be hazardous for your nerves. linas 15:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Milo Wolff, then Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-08-06#Milo_Wolff. Note that Solmil ( talk · contribs) previously created Myron Evans, misleadingly portarying him as a mainstream, a ludicrously misleading claim. Solmil might be a sock for Haselhurst ( talk · contribs).--- CH 03:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
User:Bubba73 pointed out to me that this AfD resulted in keep! I can't find evidence of a second AfD. Maybe the article is now a red link because it was prod'd? --- CH 03:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Article for deletion: EmDrive linas 04:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Of possible interest to contributors here is this bit about "New Scientist" magazine. -- ScienceApologist 13:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I note with growing concern that this page increasingly resembles a diatribe written by someone with a serious grudge against Evans.
Don't worry, I am not going over to the dark side--- far from it--- but I have become increasingly alarmed about edits by a group of users (apparently single purpose accounts used only to edit this article):
Inquiries on their talk pages about their identity IRL and their personal connection to Evans have so far not yielded satisfactory answers. I fear that these users appear to constitute a group of meatpuppets (or sockpuppets), and they appear unable or unwilling to explain why they feel that Evans (who to me seems a very minor crank of little importance in the big picture) warrants a steadily growing article with two dozen links to the half-crazed AIAS blog (hardly a reliable source!) but remarkably little hard information. While these users no doubt feel they are "fighting the good fight", I am concerned that they have lost sight of the goals of the Wikipedia.
I believe that User:Pjacobi has come to similar conclusions, but unfortunately I just saw a message on his user talk page stating that he will be AFW (away from Wikipedia) for several days.
I have some additional concerns about this situation which I think I should only mention in emails to users I have come to know and trust.
Anyway, I am proposing at Talk:Myron Evans to stubbify the article and cut down the links to perhaps three links:
Comments would be welcome at Talk:Myron Evans.--- CH 04:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Update: Pjacobi did a fine job of stubbyfing the godawful mess at Myron Evans. Then I remembered a second and redundant article, Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS, the Evans "research institute"), and nominated it for deletion.--- CH 00:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
As I just wrote on the WikiProject Physics Talk page, the article Heim theory has been proposed for deletion. Comment as you see fit. Anville 13:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
The subject of this article seems to be of a highly questionable nature, and the article does not have any reliable and reputable sources. I have thus nominated it for deletion here. I expect that others will be able to investigate the matter more thoroughly. -- Constantine Evans 13:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)