User:ScienceApologist

I act to mitigate, redesign, and occasionally destroy the offerings of users who think that a particular "breakthrough" or "notable idea" deserves more consideration than it has gotten in the academic world. Such grandstanding is forbidden by a variety of Wikipedia policies and guidelines (WP:V, WP:SOAP, WP:NOR, WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT, WP:NOT, and WP:REDFLAG to name just a few). Wikipedia is inherently a non-innovative reference work: it stifles creativity and free-thought. If Wikipedia had been around at the time of Galileo, his ideas would have been subject to my incisive commentary and editorial braggadocio -- even if I agreed with him. I am a status quo promoter. NPOV-PUSHER.

Rules for dealing with pseudoscience

These are the rules for dealing with pseudoscience and editors who promote/push a pseudoscience POV.

Pseudoscience demarcation

Pseudoscience is anything that deals with observable features of the world in regards to the following subjects:

• Religious-based explanation of observable events
  • Creationism
  • Faith healers
  • Miracle workers
  • Pseudopsychology (including certain aspects of Scientology)
• Conspiracy theorist claims of suppression of true-science
  • UFOs
  • Black helicopters
  • Faked moon landing
  • Fluoridation paranoia
  • JFK conspiracy theories
  • AIDS denialism
  • 911-Truth
  • Great global warming swindle
  • Spontaneous human combustion
• Alternative histories with token (or less) mainstream support
  • Velikovsky/Sitchin/Von Daniken
  • Racial theorists
  • Holocaust denial
• Alternative medicine claiming scientific basis
  • Homeopathy
  • Vitalism
  • Acupuncture/Chiropractor theorizing
  • Reflexology
  • Bioenergy (Qi)
  • Magnetic therapy
  • EMF paranoia
• Idiosyncratic and autodidact theories
  • Theories of everything
  • Crankism (X is wrong!)
• Spiritualism/Paranormal claims of observable implications
  • Astrology
  • Parapsychology
  • ESP
  • Crystals/pyramid power
  • Quantum mysticism
  • Matter-spirit interaction
  • Psychic communication
• Cryptozoology claims
• Numerology claims
• Amateur inventors claiming "new science"
  • Free energy/cold fusion
  • Perpetual motion
  • Tesla enthusiasts

Such subjects may be categorized as such. It may also be appropriate to indicate in various locations within the article that the subject is pseudoscience so as to properly frame the article contents.

Reliable sourcing

Primary sourcing

Pseudoscience is described with promotional bias by pseudoscientists. These sources can be useful for describing what pseudoscientists say they believe. Typical pseudoscience sources include:

• Dedicated websites (normally registered under a .com or .org -- rarely under .edu though there are occasions where this may be possible)
• Dedicated periodicals
• Self-published sources
• Publications made outside the typical scientific presses
• In-house journals (not to be confused with academic journals)
• Occasional peer-reviewed articles -- often in more obscure journals

Secondary and tertiary sourcing

Non-promotional descriptions of pseudoscience can only be had from second- and third-party sources. Most of these sources will not be peer-reviewed simply because science tends to ignore pseudoscience. This means that the following are reliable sources for describing pseudoscience:

• CSICOP
• Encyclopedia of pseudoscience
• An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural
• Skeptic's Dictionary
• Skeptical Inquirer
• talk.origins archive
• Bad Astronomy
• Quackwatch
• Mainstream media reports
• Skeptical scientists speaking extemporaneously (whether it be in person, letters, personal websites, blogs, etc.)
• Statements from scientific societies

Sourcing science

Occasionally, actual scientific theories or observations will need to be explained in relation to pseudoscience. These should be sourced by standard scientific sources including standard textbooks and classic papers.

One-way linking

Oftentimes pseudoscience articles must link to science articles. Rarely will science articles link to pseudoscience articles. This is the principle of one-way linking.

Including science

Any article which describes pseudoscience must point out how it contradicts mainstream science and link to the mainstream science page appropriately.

Excluding pseudoscience

Per the rules of reliable sourcing and not unduly weighting fringe opinions, an article about a mainstream topic should marginalize all related pseudoscience topics relative to the prominence seen in secondary and tertiary sources about the mainstream topic. A pseudoscientific topic should not be mentioned in an article about a mainstream topic unless there are independent mainstream sources that connect the topics. For example, there are plenty of mainstream sources which describe how astronomy is not astrology, and so a decent article on the former may mention the latter. However, there are no mainstream sources about special relativity which also mention autodynamics, and so a decent article on the former should not mention the latter.

If pseudoscience is deemed necessary to exclude in a certain article, there should not even be a link through a see also section.

Appeal to authority

Occasionally, proponents of pseudoscience will discover that they can get more attention if they make appeals to authority by presenting supporters who have academic credentials. Attention to such detail is only warranted if there is third-party mention of this. Pseudoscientific groups making a to-do over a person's academic degrees or honorification should be treated as promotionalism.

Description

Pseudoscience should not be described on its own terms. The goal of writing an article on pseudoscience should be to present the ideas that are most commonly seen in relation to that pseudoscientific idea. This means that when writing an article on pseudoscience, popularity of ideas is a major rationale for inclusion/exclusion. Obscure iterations of pseudoscience should be eliminated, even if so-called "experts" in the subject believe such ideas to be of the utmost importance. The best way to write an article on pseudoscience is to approach it from the perspective of what topics are most prevalent in the popular culture about the subject.

All claims that are made about observable reality which are directly contradicted by mainstream science must be so-framed.

Summary statements

Appropriate descriptions of pseudoscience and the places where it contradicts aspects of science should be made through summary statements rather than direct quotes. Promoters of pseudoscience often wish to avoid summary statements and misuse direct attribution in attempts to frame the objections to pseudoscience as being parochial. Care should be made to avoid direct attribution unless the statement being made is clearly a singular perspective.

Avoiding equivocation

Equivocation in the description of pseudoscience must be avoided. It is a common tactic for supporters of pseudoscience to insist that the description of pseudoscience be equivocal as a means to accommdoate their beliefs. For example, instead of simply stating: "perpetual motion violates the known laws of physics", a proponent may wish for the equivocal statement: "some physicists claim that perpetual motion may violate certain physical principles, but there is considerable controversy over the matter." This kind of rewording is a subtle example of POV-pushing and should be resisted.

Proving a negative

Bertrand Russell posed the question that since science cannot disprove the idea that there is a teapot orbiting the sun between the Earth and the Moon, would a "neutral" description of the controversy over whether such a teapot exists be, "Scientific evidence shows that a teapot might exist between the Earth and Mars."? The answer, for a mainstream encyclopedia is necessarily, "no". Besides demanding that Wikipedia make a statement that unequivocally proves the negative, such wording implies a level of credulity unwarranted by the available evidence. At times, scientific conservatism regarding the problems with induction will inspire researchers to write caveats about possibilities for which their research has provided no evidence. Such caveats often take the form of positive statements about possibilities for effects not yet measured. Since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, nor is it our job to report on the conjectures of the researchers as to what the future will bring if no one else noticed their caveat, it is irresponsible for us as encyclopedia editors to dwell on such statements or, indeed, include them in our articles. This can conflict with the advocacy of pseudoscience promoters who often aim to include as many "possibilities" and "open doors" as they can in the consideration of their pet subject.

"Pseudoskepticism"

This term is an epithet used to deride those attempting to neutrally describe subjects relating to pseudoscience. It was coined by Marcello Truzzi who believed, idiosyncratically, that every claim no matter how absurd should be subject to controlled observation or experimentation before dismissing. No sources are reliably described as "pseudoskeptical" and therefore none can be dismissed as such.

False claims of consensus

Often, promoters of pseudoscience will insist that there is consensus for their attempts to flout the rules for dealing with pseudoscience. Alternatively, they might insist that there is "no consensus" for changes that bring an article's text more closely in line with the rules for dealing with pseudoscience. Such cases are examples of obvious exceptions to consensus policy, and the attempts to stall improvements to articles through such false claims of consensus are rightly ignored as disruption of the encyclopedia.

Religious exceptionalism

In properly framed articles, exceptional religious claims are considered to be on-par with literature or mythology. Only religious claims explicitly made in contradiction to observable reality are relevant to these rules. So, for example, while resurrection of the dead is a statement of dogma that has a variety of interpretations, only the most literal of those interpretations are relevant here.

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