Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism/Archive 6

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made category:scientific skepticism into subcategory of category:pseudoscience

I made category:scientific skepticism into subcategory of category:pseudoscience so that the latter category can be cleaned up. There are some tough cases where a skeptic or actual scientist is well-known as a debunker of pseudoscience, and so it makes sense to put their article in the pseudoscience category. If we can avoid that because one of their skepticism-related categories is already a sub-category of the pseudoscience category, then all the better. My only concern is whether people will take the categorization as meaning "scientific skepticism is a type of pseudoscience" rather than "scientific skepticism is directed against pseudoscience" ? I've mentioned this on the talk page of the category as well. --Sapphic (talk) 06:40, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Category:Alternatve medical systems

A user wants to rename Category:Alternative medical systems to Category:Whole medical systems as he says that is the NCCAM or something name for it. I would appreciate your opinion on the category's talk page or something, but I don't link to them or whatever page I'm on ends up in them lol, but you can put them in the search bar to find them. Sticky Parkin 22:33, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

You can link to them by using this text: [[:Category:Alternative medical systems]] (note the : in front of "Category") and it won't put this page into the category itself. --Sapphic (talk) 05:15, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Aaaah, thanks:) Sticky Parkin 01:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Glossary of alternative medicine

This article is being considered for deletion, just thought I'd let you know in case you want to give your opinions. Sticky Parkin 18:55, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Protandim

Is this herbal product really as good and 'proven' as it claims? The claimed proof is just one study. Any help WP:NPOVing this one would be great. Sticky Parkin 19:47, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

Would anybody mind if I set up MiszaBot to archive dead discussions on this page? The traffic is pretty low here, so archiving after a month is probably reasonable. - Eldereft (cont.) 22:39, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that setting up MiszaBot would be entirely appropriate. I'd probably set it to 60 days initially but that's just me. --Athol Mullen (talk) 00:22, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Done - threads at least 60 days old will be archived, unless that would drop the number of sections below five or only one thread would be moved. - Eldereft (cont.) 17:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to redirect

There is a proposal to redirect Seth Material (an article within this Wikiproject's scope) to Jane Roberts. Please comment at Talk:Seth Material#Redirect to Jane Roberts. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The article could use some critical commentary if any skeptics have ever addressed an of the claims. 70.186.172.75 (talk) 18:19, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

New list

Announcing a new list:

• List of alternative medicine subjects

-- Fyslee / talk 08:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Johann Bessler

Hello,

I am french speaker (I have no account here) and I noticed on French wikipedia a very pitiable and pseudoscientific article about Johann Bessler. This article claimed that Bessler wheel was working and that thermodynamic laws are circulus in probando axioms. The facts were proved with some links to horrible websites (read http://www.besslerwheel.com/firstlaw.html and cry). The article was easy to fix but I noticed that it was a translation of the English article.

Can anybody try to fix Johann Bessler before it get translated on some more languages ? My English is to poor for this work. 137.129.13.90 (talk) 12:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it needs work. I've taken a first stab at the Life and Career section, though the "evaluation" is probably the most problematic (hello WP:OR). [1] -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, did more [2]. It's been awhile since I majorly edited a pseudoscience article, please do tell if I've done good. The whole thing is still totally unsourced. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Kurtweil and Technological Singularity graphs

Three graphs caught my eye when browsing articles on Transhumanism, all produced by Ray_Kurzweil (also worth investigating) - they are File_talk:PPTCountdowntoSingularityLinear.jpg, File_talk:PPTCountdowntoSingularityLog.jpg, and File_talk:ParadigmShiftsFrr15Events.jpg. I have removed them from most articles while posting the relevant debunking on their talk pages (basically the graph claims something that is mathematically trivial - that a linear plot on a log-vertical scale becomes a singularity at time 0). I'd like to warn everybody to watch out for trivial graphs that make grandiose claims, and ask if an admin would like to take the opportunity to delete those graphs (especially considering there is some question as to whether or not copyright is violated). SamuelRiv (talk) 23:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's concentrate the discussion at Talk:Technological singularity#Removing graph PPTCountdowntoSingularityLinear.jpg. --Petri Krohn (talk) 20:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I removed the graph from all linked articles, and the above poster undid those removals, saying in his comments "Reverted WP:OR pov-pushing - Wikipedia does not have a WP:scientific point of view". As far as I can recall, Wikipedia is about information, and that graph intentionally misinforms people - in each of the articles from which it was removed, it was presented as fact. I'd like to ask the people on this project for some help on this matter, considering this is not an issue of controversy, evidence, or anything like that, but a matter of unambiguous mathematical fact. SamuelRiv (talk) 21:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Hydrino theory

Added the template of this WikiProject to Hydrino theory, cf BlackLight Power, Inc., cf Randell L. Mills. Project members might want to take a look. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 17:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Why capital-R capital-S?

I guess I'm here because of twitty comments by people who seem to be associated with this project, but normally I wouldn't sully myself with professional debunkers except I do have to ask how it is that this project is title capital-R capital-S "Rational Skepticism", and not "Rational skepticism". Or is "Skepticism" somehow now a formal field and reified to need an "S" whenever mentioned? Surely this is contrary to Wikipedia naming guidelines...I've seen more commonly capitalized things uncapitalized because of the Wikipedia rulebook; here I see somethign capitalized that rarely is...perhaps to legitimize it as a formal field? And not just a hobby for cynics and naysayers?Skookum1 (talk) 15:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Audiophile needs review

Time for another look at Audiophile, as most of the skepticism about audiophile claims which (if I recall correctly) was formerly in the article seems to have disappeared. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 19:03, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Andrew Weil could be more balanced

Andrew Weil doesn't seem to contain any criticism of Weil's ideas. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 20:58, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Aquatic ape hypothesis

Added template of WikiProject Rational Skepticism to Aquatic ape hypothesis. Un-cited assertions are periodically added to this artcle, removed, re-added, etc. See Talk:Aquatic_ape_hypothesis for some history. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 01:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Astronaut Story Musgrave UFO

Story Musgrave mentions and links to an online article on Musgrave's supposed sighting of a UFO during space shuttle Columbia mission STS-80. The linked article also states that Musgrave views the idea of UFOs as extraterrestrials visiting Earth very favorably. Can we get any more sources/cites on this subject? Thanks. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 13:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

help with radiation hormesis

Hi, I am an editor over at Radiation hormesis where I am in a POV dispute. When I tried to argue that NAS studies were more informative than journal articles over at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources I was told I should probably just come here. The dispute amounts to this: how should radiation hormesis (the idea that small doses of radiation are good for you) be dealt with? What should the emphasis of the page be, how should the articles that run counter to NAS reports be featured? Any help would be greatly appreciated. PDBailey (talk) 23:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE has some advice, and WP:MEDRS is by and large very well written. The hypothesis is not completely whack, but it is also pretty far from being accepted. It might even by directly contradicted by the data, which would certainly make things easier. This article could certainly use a good dose of WP:DUE, so I will try to dig up some reviews by next weekend. - Eldereft (cont.) 08:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Eldereft, this article needs a lot more than a few links (though, I appreciate them). One problem is that radiation hormesis might be true. As such, it does not leverage any of the most useful parts of these pages which are designed for more black and white cases. While there are shades of grey allowed, I think it needs the hand of more than one or two editors. My attempts to convince other editors that this is a shade of grey has been... less than successful (see i.e. this discussion, or this edit). Other eyes would help tremendously. PDBailey (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

At this point there is a disagreement as to if there is even a POV dispute. Any third-party assistance would be of great help. PDBailey (talk) 05:10, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I have a fairly extensive radiobio background, will take a look at the article. Djma12 ^(talk) 23:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

2012

Added template of WikiProject Rational Skepticism to 2012. As this year draws closer, we can expect interest in the topic -- and edits to the article -- to increase.
I.e., we may want to check in on the article from time to time and see whether anything "funny" has crept in. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 14:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I have just done a great deal of research into this subject. I have sourced it with peer reviewed data from respected journals. I have found the 2012 theories to be completely debunked. However, as I am new to this site, I cannot edit the 2012 page...will one of you please do it for me? here is a link to a page that contains a presentation as well as the transcript, at the bottom are the references..White, Chris. "2012 Debunked". Retrieved 2009-01-02.

2012 has apparently been protected since 19 November 2008 (by User:UnknownMan52. Seems to me like it's about time to de-protect. Can anybody do this? Thanks. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 22:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it was protected on 17 November by User:Dougweller. User:UnknownMan52 merely added a protection tag. Is there other support for removing the protection? If so, I will do it. --Bduke (Discussion) 22:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thx much for the clarification. Why would we not want to remove this protection after more than a month? -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, but I'll keep a watch on it. --Bduke (Discussion) 00:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You did it! its unlocked! Feel free to use any of the references I found in the debunking process, I will try to add some things but Im not so good at the editing yet. I provided a lot of links at the bottom of this page: White, Chris. "2012 Debunked". Retrieved 2009-01-02. which you can find links to the evidence to debunk almost all aspects of this issue.

Jordan Maxwell

Article on Jordan Maxwell ("researcher and independent scholar in the fields of astro-theology, religion, secret societies, and the occult") could use some review. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 22:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Patterson-Gimlin film ("that Bigfoot film")

Added the template of this project to Patterson-Gimlin film aka "The Patterson film" aka that famous film purporting to show a Bigfoot/Sasquatch. IMHO article is in pretty good shape. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

José Silva (parapsychologist): Let's fix or AFD

José Silva (parapsychologist). IMHO strikingly poor article on the originator of "the Silva Method [formerly known as Silva Mind Control] and the Silva UltraMind ESP System, intended to help people increase their IQ, develop psychic skills, and to develop the ability to heal both themselves and others remotely, using forces unknown to science. ... He was persuaded that he had developed a method to teach anyone to use ESP."
- Article has no cites. Has been so tagged since Feb 2007.
Let's please bring this article up to standard or AFD.
-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 18:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Possibly within scope?

Is Feminine essence theory of transsexuality of interest to this project? This is the woman-trapped-in-a-man's-body notion of transsexuality, which is widely promoted by political activists and apparently just as widely rejected by the sexologists. (The article is currently at AfD, but I expect it to survive.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Chinese herbology

I added the project template to this article, but I'm not sure how to approach making it more NPOV since there isn't much research available and TCM involves so many different herbs.--Ships at a Distance (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

There's quite a bit of research available, but it's on PubMed and can be hard to access, especially since these are the journals an average library isn't likely to have. A quick scan at PubMed reveals, for example, PMID 18669806, or PMID 18537696. PMID 16787890 (free) would be particularly interesting. I have access to the first, though I doubt you're looking for that stuff. TimVickers and Doc James have better access and have been willing to share with me. The article itself notes that 50 are considered fundamental, so that's where you could start. You might want to look for a good monograph, which may be tricky. For example, there's Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica; could try a WorldCat library loan. If you're looking to make edits like this there, I'm afraid I can't help. The relevance of Dawkins' opinion on Ayurveda is questionable. Eh, sorry for the general rambling advice -- I gather you're looking for help editing, and I'm not sure I have time for it at the moment. II | (t - c) 01:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your help. Also, about the Ayurveda edit, why wouldn't Dawkins' opinion be relevant if he's a prominent critic? And if you're not too busy do you have any more advice about that article? --Ships at a Distance (talk) 01:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Some articles that may need attention

Internal Family Systems Model, Ego-state therapy, Subpersonalities, Body memory (if you're unfamiliar with them, they're related to multiple personality disorder, hypnosis, past life regression, and repressed memories.

People might also consider weighing in on the neutrality and factual accuracy dispute on Repressed memory and the merge proposal for Recovered memory therapy and False memory syndrome. In fact, if it hasn't been done already, it might be useful to note all POV disputes and so on for articles relevant to this Wikiproject? Шизомби (talk) 17:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

To note one POV dispute I'm involved in: Talk:Ayurveda. Maybe I'm wrong, but that article seems very biased. Maybe some other editors could weigh in? --Ships at a Distance (talk) 05:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

That article can certainly improve, but I don't know if I see the great bias that you're seeing. I'll check out the other articles later, sounds fun. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merger of Apparitional experience to ghost

See Talk:Ghost#Merger_proposal Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

"Hybrid-origin" needs eyes

There's an IMHO pretty strange article at Hybrid-origin on Stan Gooch's theory of human origins, as put forward in Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom.
Could Project members please take a look at this?
(This article is also referenced in other anthropological articles.)
-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 22:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Several NPOV problems with Hymen article

I've been having an ongoing debate on that page over 3 main issues:

- Use of an obsolete and unclear illustration as the introductory image, aligning itself more with a religious view than a scientific view. The vulva drawing has not been in use by Gray's Anatomy for some time. In addition, they Gray's Anatomy I looked at yesterday does not even bother to show a hymen. The point is photographs of adult hymens are pretty much non existent.

- Generalized misrepresentation of scientific/forensics sources (cherry picking of information to suit ones' POV) mostly regarding differences between newborn, children, adult anatomy, normal vs abnormal development and "formations"; and over-use of unscientific webpages/blogs/pulp culture to justify religious/non-scientific/virginity beliefs POVs of this anatomical debate.

- Overuse of non NPOV words such as "restoration", "intact", "normal", "damage", etc, which bely science's view of the vagina openings' normal developmental process.

It seems to be that this is a case for the Scientific Skepticism team, in order to reassign the references to their proper meanings and to reduce the size of scientific portions of the article to be more aligned with other encyclopedic sources. It is unseemly that Wikipedia knows more about hymens than the available scientific literature, of which I would not include Cecil Adams. Religious claims and pseudo-science POVs may be present, but after the straight science.--Tallard (talk) 11:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page. Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project. No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work. Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

About Rational Skepticism

To whom it may concern, I would like to know if the biography of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy could fall under the category of this WikiProject. He was a rationalists who was a social activist in the early years of the 20th century. Or, is does this wikiproject only deal with topics and bios that deal with science? Wiki Raja (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Eyes needed on James H. Fetzer

Autobiographic article on conspiracy theorist could use RS-scrubbing and inclusion of more skeptical POV. THF (talk) 13:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Paleolithic diet

We currently have a fad diet listed as a featured article. It uses many techniques to make it look like there is lots of evidence when there is very little. Have tried to correct some of the worst errors but could definitely use some help from this project and hopefully a demotion from a FA.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Deletion review for Category:Fad diet

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Category:Fad diet. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedy-deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Xasodfuih (talk) 09:15, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Vladimir Ilyushin: First man in space?

Vladimir Ilyushin:

Ilyushin is purported to be a cosmonaut; it is alleged he became the first man in space on 7 April 1961. This honor is generally attributed to Yuri Gagarin whose spaceflight, Vostok 1, took place on 12 April.... According to Mark Wade, editor of the well known website Encyclopedia Astronautica ... "We know who was in the original cosmonaut team, who never flew, was dismissed, or was killed in ground tests. Ilyushin is not one of them."

Article is a stub - could use more text and sources. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 00:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I found one source, and scrubbed it of the worst problems, but more could be done. The real problem is at Soviet space program conspiracy accusations, which is a holy disaster. THF (talk) 01:36, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! We'll just add that one to WikiProject Rational Skepticism, too. :-) -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:23, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Paleolithic diet

Added the fad diet Paleolithic diet. Could use some help from this project as could all fad diets for that matter. Thanks --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Bigfoot photographs

Recently there has been some disagreement on what to include in the "Prominent reported sightings" section of the Bigfoot article. Some editors have tried to include an incident with several photos of what Bigfoot advocates believe is a young Bigfoot. Those same editors have created a page for the sighting: Jacobs Creature. The text that was added has been removed and we have discussed for the last few days whether this warrants inclusion on the list as "prominent". We cannot, of course, list all sightings of Bigfoot and so must limit those that are mentioned to the top tier. I remember the attention that the photos got immediately after their publication in 2007[3] but it seems like it has not received sufficient attention to warrant being one of the top 5 sightings of Bigfoot. Does anyone know about something that might suggest that this qualifies as one of the top sightings? —Fiziker ^t c 02:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Risk management article

Risk management has been considered for this project in July 2007. I do not think it really falls in scope and since it hasn't been re-evaluated for 2 years I will remove the banner.

Ghaag (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Help needed

I would like some help with red wikilinks here:

• Alternative medicine critics

Any other suggestions or help would also be appreciated. Please use the talk page. -- Fyslee (talk) 07:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Lead section of ghost

I am opening this up here at Talk:Ghost#Consensus_on_size_and_contents_of_the_lead so we can get a consensus on what should be in the lede. Comment on other ideas and/or add yer own on what the most salient points are. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Psychic claimants

I thought you all might want to know about this discussion about moving "psychics" to "psychic claimants". I hope it works out. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox paranormal creature

A user has expressed concern over a POV problem with Template:Infobox paranormal creature. This template is used on both cryptids and mythological creatures that aren't of concern to cryptozoologists. I'm not sure whether the infobox gives POV support to cryptids being real creatures. Comments would be welcomed. —Fiziker ^t c 22:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Project tag

I'm not a project member but noticed that {{Rational Skepticism}} starts: "This article is being improved by WikiProject Rational Skepticism." Many articles are covered by multiple projects and "improved by" seems an odd claim to make for a project which may not have contributed to a given article. I don't recall seeing other project tags with such a statement. The common formulation is "This article is within the scope of ...". Will you consider a change? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, that's an interesting observation. That wording predates the use of Template:WPBannerMeta, which is what is currently used (WPBannerMeta has the "scope of" language as default). I personally don't care either way. —Fiziker ^t c 00:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

RFC on Hak Ja Han

Ongoing WP:RFC on article Hak Ja Han, please see Talk:Hak_Ja_Han#RfC:_Sentence_about_marriage_to_Sun_Myung_Moon. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 07:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Angels: Contemporary research on

I notice that Angel ("emanations of a supreme divine being, sent to do the tasks of that being") contains a section "Contemporary research" which might relevant to the work of this WikiProject. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 23:38, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Acupuncture and Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome

We could use some additional eyes on an RfC at the IC/PBS talk page regarding the use of acupuncture and interstitial cystitis. Debate is stalled (and was previously heated). --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:02, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Panayiotis Zavos needs work

Article on Panayiotis Zavos (recently in press in relation to claims of human cloning) is in pretty bad shape -- very light on cites, among other things. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 22:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Miracle needs eyes

Miracle could use some tightening up. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 02:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)