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Directory:The Wikipedia Point of View/Dealing with pseudoscience (view source)
Revision as of 13:47, 9 January 2009
, 13:47, 9 January 2009no edit summary
== Why Wikipedia cannot claim the earth is round ==
#X's paper on 'scientific fallacies' contains only passing reference to the 'flat earth fallacy'. [[WP:NPOV]] says "Even with well-sourced material ... if you use it out of context or to advance a position that is not '''directly and explicitly''' supported by the source used, you as an editor are engaging in original research."
#The flat-earth theory is not amenable to scientific approaches and methods.
#Flat-earth theorists are pragmatic. They are not interested in what is 'true', they are interested in 'what works'.
#Scientist X, who claimed the flat-earth theory was nonsense, clearly had not read the literature on the flat-earth theory.
#Scientist X was not trained in flat-earth theory, and therefore could not make an expert judgment.
#The criticisms made by scientist X were valid only against Rosencrantz' version of the flat-earth theory, long since outmoded. They fail to address Guildernstein's improved version of the theory.
#You must not say 'the earth is not flat' but 'according to critics of the flat-earth theory, the earth is not flat'.
#X Y and Z are hard-line skeptics about flat-earthism. They often publish in skeptics magazines and take a hard line with any approach to any theory which is not empirically verified.
#There is no reliable source for the statement that 'flat-earthism has entirely been ignored by reliable sources'
#The statement 'there is no scientific consensus for the flat-earth view' has no scientific consensus.
#X's statement "Informal soundings amongst scientists revealed an almost total absence of awareness of the flat earth theory" is mere opinion. X is using personal experience as evidence. This is not a scientific evidence and is therefore mere opinion.
#The statement 'The earth is round' has reliable sources in scientific literature. The statement 'If the X is round, X is not flat' is a valid inference that can be sourced from any reliable logic textbook. But 'The earth is not flat', while a conclusion validly yielded by these two reliably-sourced premisses, is a violation of [[WP:SYNTH]]: "Even if published by reliable sources, material must not be connected together in such a way that it constitutes original research".
#There has been no serious study of whether the earth is flat since 1493. Therefore we cannot claim in Wikipedia that earth is not flat, only that a study in 1493 came to this conclusion.
== Civil POV pushing ==
== Civil POV pushing ==
*They hang around forever wearing down more serious editors and become expert in an odd kind of way on their niche POV.
*They hang around forever wearing down more serious editors and become expert in an odd kind of way on their niche POV.
*They often make a series of silly and time wasting requests for comment, mediation or arbitration again to try to wear down the serious editors.
*They often make a series of silly and time wasting requests for comment, mediation or arbitration again to try to wear down the serious editors.
== Other arguments ==
* They try to claim that a fringe viewpoint is 'controversial', as though there were a minority but substantial view held by serious scientists or academics, in controversy with the mainstream.