The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. consensus is quite clear, almost SNOW-worthy. This is also the third AfD for this article and with similar results Valley2city^‽ 18:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of topics characterized as pseudoscience[edit]

List of topics characterized as pseudoscience (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

I don't know what this page was originally, but it is now a completely unencyclopedic forum for editors to list out any old thing that they happen to think deserves ridicule. Currently the page contains references to

• Objects (like the Shroud of Turin or Laundry Balls
• Non-scientific 'modern myths' (like Ufology or Tutankhamun's curse)
• Specific people (Erik von Daniken)
• Arguable actual pseudoscience (like Magnetic Therapy and Biorhythms)
• Well-established academic fields (like psychoanalysis)
• Practices which are neither scientific nor explicitly pseudoscientific (like Traditional Chinese Medicine)

and other sundry, unclassifiable references, and there is absolutely no distinction made between various kinds or levels of pseudoscience. Further, the criteria for inclusion/exclusion are so vague - allowing any reference from any notable source that might be construed by a wikipedia editor as implying pseudoscience - that almost anything could be listed on this page; content is determined more by mild edit-warring than by any particular overarching meaning. For a recent example, editors keep adding Psychoanalysis to the list, and keep removing Darwinism, although it's precisely the same source - Karl Popper - that calls both of them pseudoscience; pure and unabashed POV-pushing.

The page is close to being an attack page, though I don't think it qualifies for speedy deletion. I'd be willing to see it rescued, but so far I've had no luck getting any reasoned response to the changes I've tried to make, and I see no reason to keep struggling against this degree of opposition. This page is an eyesore, and if we cannot come up with a restrictive and careful set of criteria for what goes on this page, and how entries presented, the page should simply be removed. Ludwigs2 19:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For convenience, the previous AfDs for this article are here and here.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:41, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong keep the argument presented makes no case for administrative action but rather is about editorial issues. Does that article need a lot of work - yes, is it a fit subject for an article - yes. There is no policy based reason for a) this version of the article to be deleted or b) for not to have an article on this subject matter. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:27, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  sorry, but a completely unencyclopedic page is certainly an administrative issue. --Ludwigs2 19:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy Keep - it isn't appropriate to use AFD to solve editorial disputes. Try WP:AE, since the article is covered by several arbcomm rulings. Guettarda (talk) 19:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and resolve criteria on talk page, subject to full compliance with policies. Note that Darwinism has never been called pseudoscience by Karl Popper; looks like pure and unabashed POV-pushing trying to add or defend that item. . dave souza, talk 19:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. I believe this list was originally a spin-out from Pseudoscience, created to move the edit-warring in the list of examples in an otherwise relatively stable article elsewhere. Calling something a "pseudoscience" is of course an attack. Attempts at creating objective criteria for pseudoscience invariably end up including some (relatively) "respectable" fields such as psychoanalysis, or excluding some of the "fringe" fields that one would like to label in this way. I believe this is in part because some fields don't entirely deserve their respectability or lack thereof, and in part because a "list of pseudosciences" (the original title, before an extended renaming discussion) suffers from the same problems as a "list of crappy cars" or a "list of people with bad taste". --Hans Adler (talk) 19:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Rename - if anything at all - to "List of pseudosciences" and have the inclusion criteria mirror WP:PSCI; whereas, the resulting list article will have entries mirroring that of Category:Pseudoscience but with an explanation next to each entry (as we have it now). Otherwise, I'd vote Keep and remind everyone that being included in this list does not mean that a topic is definitively pseudoscientific; only that some notable source has characterized it as such. Essentially, either this is a "List is of topics characterized as pseudoscience" and we abide by WP:NPOV by including all notable characterizations past and present or we change it to a "List of pseudosciences" and we only include obvious pseudosciences or topics which are generally considered pseudosciences. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  20:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and redirect to Category:Pseudoscience or adopt Levine2112s excellent proposal. From what I can see in the talk page archives this 'inclusion criteria' discussion has been going on since its inception. However much we have tried, the lack of alignment between ad-hoc criteria and wikipedia policy and guidelines continues and in all probability will continue be, an exercise in limited returns. As it stands it fails to attribute opinion correctly in all but 5 of its entries, it has a consistent NPOV issue due to the selective application of the inclusion criteria. Unomi (talk) 23:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - we are here again - and the same crew (who will be the nominator for the 4th attempt?) - goodness me... Shot info (talk) 23:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This is a valid article. The main problem that I see with it is a lack of clarity on what should be included, but that is properly dealt with on the talk page. —Fiziker ^t c 23:36, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This is a perfectly valid list, it may need a renaming, but not because it is encyclopedic.--Pstanton (talk) 00:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep In regard to editorial requirements, the list is perfectly valid. Concerns about individual entries on the list can be discussed via the article's Talk Page. Deleting the entire article seems heavy-handed. Pastor Theo (talk) 00:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • sorry if it's heavy-handed: I just don't know what else to do with an unencyclopedic article that that people are actively trying to keep unencyclopedic. I'm open to suggestions... --Ludwigs2 01:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - There is no problem with the topic. Lots of argument about what should or shouldn't go on the page on the page isn't grounds for deletion. This article needs a carefully defined scope. Sifaka ^talk 01:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment this list originally was part of Wikipedia's organizational scheme, and was used in place of categories, which did not yet exist. It's also usable as part of alternate navigation through indexes, if it would be so linked. 70.29.213.241 (talk) 04:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep Sources generally regarded as reliable on the topic ... blah blah blah, just close this. Do we need DR, or can everyone play nice and bring well-written edits and arguments amply supported by quality sources for a few weeks until the next time someone feels like making a point? - Eldereft (cont.) 05:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep It is better to contain the controversy to one article. MaxPont (talk) 06:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy Keep Disruptive nomination. Verbal chat 09:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I suppsoe that applies to the last two times it was nominated as well? and maybe the next few (because there's no sign that this problem is going away anytime soon, without some major revisions to the page). tsk, tsk... please keep your comments on topic, and off other editors. --Ludwigs2 21:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not interested in the last two times, but this time while you were in the middle of a content dispute and with no new issues was clearly disruptive. I suggest you withdraw the nomination as a keep. Verbal chat 07:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• you can keep beating the disruptive drum until your knuckles turn blue - that silliness is not going to get you anywhere. but if you want me to withdraw the nomination, I'm willing to do so if and when I see some clear indications that the obvious and deep problems this page suffers from are under revision. that means that you need to stop reverting my edits blindly, and start discussing the changes I want to make with some language that doesn't amount to shut up and go away. and yes, I'm talking to you specifically. until that time I have to believe that you're deeply committed to keeping this page a misbegotten, misleading mess, in which case I firmly believe it should be deleted as a violation of wikipedia's content standards. ball's in your court, Verbs: you going to keep being a bear, or are you going to work with me to fix what desperately needs fixing? --Ludwigs2 06:49, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• "misbegotten, misleading mess"? You keep repeating descriptions of this sort, but it is your misbegotten perception that needs fixing, not the list. Please stop the attacks and insistance that it's your way or the highway. When you aren't getting your way in the face of overwhelming consensus to the contrary, to threaten that you will continue to fight this is being very disruptive. -- BRangifer (talk) 07:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Your edit summary is factually incorrect and inappropriate. Ludwigs2 is trying to fix a problem with this list, not to "disrupt". Any disruption on this page is due to inappropriate accusations against Ludwigs2, to which he is merely responding. (And in a slightly more controlled way.) See WP:KETTLE. As to the dispute at the article: That situation was a bit more symmetric because Ludwigs2 was a bit more bold than is advisable at that page. But that's hardly the crime as which it is being represented here. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Repeatedly making AfDs when there have been no new significant arguments for doing so is very disruptive and often blockable. Be very careful. You're misusing this process to settle an editorial dispute that shouldn't even be occurring. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• repeatedly? what are you on about? The other nominations were made months ago, by other editors. Look, Bull, I can see you angling around in your recent posts to find something that you can use to attack me (as an editor). Stop; and please focus on the topic. this AfD is not going to go away because of some minor procedural error, and it's not going to go away because you make a point of casting aspersions on my character. it will go away of its own accord after people have discussed the issue. attacking me isn't going to do a damned bit of good, and is just going to inflame things unnecessarily. (of course, I don't really expect you to respect that logic, but I thought I'd put it there in print for the record). --Ludwigs2 06:15, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• ??? What does this article offer beyond the listing available at Category:Pseudoscience? Should the pseudoscience articles be recategorized into sub-categories of pseudoscience, as is done at this listing article? If that were done, what would the article offer that the category article doesn't offer? --SV Resolution(Talk) 14:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It offers clear sourcing as an inclusion criteria. You can't source a category. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are two important differences: Inclusion of a topic in the list need not leave a trace in the article on the topic. So even if the list did mention that creationists attack Darwinism as pseudoscience, this wouldn't be reflected in Darwinism. And inclusion in a list can be commented while inclusion in a category is a yes/no matter. This is important for borderline cases such as psychoanalysis, an article that discusses that discusses that the subject has been called pseudoscience, but which is not in the category. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - see WP:BEFORE. Bearian (talk) 21:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Inherently violates WP:NPOV. For example, Rutherford said ,"All science is either physics or stamp-collecting". Does this mean that stamp-collecting is a pseudoscience? Or that everything but physics is a pseudoscience? Or that we are in the realm of insults and jokes? Wikipedia is not for opinion, advocacy and attacks. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:56, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Did you even read that link? It's about editors writing their own opinions in articles, not about editors documenting real world opinions using V & RS. That happens to be what Wikipedia does! -- BRangifer (talk) 05:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Valid article. Does it have problems? Yes, and likely will as long as we have editors warring and wikilawyering to de-list their favorite pseudoscience. The current afd seems rather a pointy part of all that. Vsmith (talk) 01:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. For an editor who has expressed that they "don't know what this page was originally," the nominator has certainly been involved in its disputes, and has now started this without announcing it on the talk page! That's a serious procedural fault. I just discovered this by chance. Editorial disputes should not be solved by AfDs. Several other editors have made POINTY attempts to sabotage the list by threatening AfDs and by listing absurdities, all in their attempts to ultimately protect their favorite pseudoscience from mention, even though notable V & RS have declared their pet ideas to be pseudoscientific. This list allows Wikipedia to do its mission, which is to use V & RS to document the real world. Why should promoters of pseudoscience be allowed to sabotage the list? The POINT violations need to stop and certain editors be topic banned from the subject. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also only found this by accident, and the nomination was clearly disruptive, looking at the nominators recent behaviour at the article. Verbal chat 07:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• AFDs are advertised by placing a large template at the head of the article and this was done in this case. It is sadly the norm that articles are brought to AFD without any discussion but this was not done in this case, as the nominator has engaged in extensive and intelligent comment and criticism of the article on its talk page. Talk of disruption is therefore quite mistaken. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree. I can see no disruption, just people who are angry that this problematic list has been nominated again. The AfD was advertised in the usual way, and in fact plenty of interested people found it. I suggest that instead of accusing each other all interested editors try to get consensus on a set of objective inclusion criteria. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I disagree, the behaviour before this nomination, and the nomination itself, meet the criteria of behaviour which is disrupting wikipedia to make a WP:POINT. I don't have a problem with the way the AfD was advertised, although a note on the talk page would have been helpful, but the nomination itself was not made for the good of the project. I'm surprised that CW isn't quoting WP:BEFORE etc. (but not very surprised). Verbal chat 12:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. The list is based on reliable sources, the topic is notable, making a list is appropriate because there are multiple books and papers makings list of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific stuff, the pseudoscience category does not allow for topics that were once called pseudoscience but are no longer called like that (like Meteorites, that article is not going to get into that category), etc.

(About the Karl Popper thing, there is a discussion here about how Popper a) didn't call it pseudoscience b) later recanted his opinion that it was not falsifiable, so that would be a non-issue.). --Enric Naval (talk) 12:32, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:LIST#Purposes_of_lists allows for redundancy between lists and categories.

I'm not sure why the nominator thinks that stuff is being listed because of thinking that it deserves ridicule; stuff is being included because it's been characterized as pseudoscience in RS, period. Entries are being discussed in a case by case basis.

About listing together crackpot stuff with more serious stuff, that's solved by editing and tweaking more the sections, and not by wholesome deletion. There were greater problems with sources, and they were already solved by editing.

About not being an encyclopedic topic, this is normally decided by seeing if there are sources making the same sort of lists, see:

• The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, Michael Shermer
• Debunked!: esp, telekinesis, and other pseudoscience, Georges Charpak (Nobel prize in Physics), Henri Broch (see )
• Hawthorne's mad scientists: pseudoscience and social science in nineteenth-century life and letters, Taylor Stoehr[1]
• Frauds, myths, and mysteries: science and pseudoscience in archaeologym Kenneth L. Feder
• Science, pseudo-science, and society, papers at a conference by Calgary Institute for the Humanities
• Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience, Martin Gardner
• Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience
• Science or pseudoscience: magnetic healing, psychic phenomena, and other heterodoxies, Henry H. Bauer
• The borderlands of science: where sense meets nonsense, Oxford Univ. Press, includes discussion of the boundary problem between science and pseudoscience [2][3]
• Voodoo science: the road from foolishness to fraud, Robert L. Park
• Navigating the Mindfield: A Guide to Separating Science from Pseudoscience in Mental Health Scott O. Lilienfeld[4]
• Bad Astronomy, Philip C. Plait
• Worlds of Their Own: Insights on PseudoScience from Creationism to the End Times Robert Schadewald[5]
• A Guide to the Perplexed about Pseudoscience: How to Recognize Science

Finally, we are not going to decide here at wikipedia where pseudoscience finishes and science starts, since this has been discused throughly since at least the 1860s[6], we are just going to echo that RS called X a pseudoscience, and its explanations of why it did so.

--Enric Naval (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Enric, You've missed the issue entirely. the problem is that 'pseudoscience' is not an analytic term, and so there is no absolutely no sense or consistency to the list. Take the Shroud of Turin, for instance: The shroud itself is merely an object, belief that it represents an image of Christ is a religious belief (a holdover from when the Catholic church kept relics of saints). All of the scientific investigation done on the shroud (that I know of) has either been inconclusive or leaned towards suggesting the Shroud is a forgery - . The only reason this is on the list is because some scholar was of the opinion that the topic itself was silly and research into it sillier, and while I wouldn't disagree, this is not the result of scientific research and therefore not a reliable source for this topic. it's just some guy's opinion. so, you have a scholar who (a) insults religion and (b) disregards what appears to be valid disconfirming scientific evidence, and you have wikipedia bolstering this misconception and using it to cast aspersions on other topics. and yet you're arguing we should include this on the grounds of literalism (that he's a reliable source, and policy says that reliable sources are included, regardless of whether what they say has merit...). what are you, a closet creationist?

the fact is, editors on this list are doing doing their darned best to try to dictate what is and is not pseudoscience; as I keep saying the only reason for the existence of this page is to promote a vast association fallacy. but if this deletion request fails, trust me, I'll take you up on reorganizing the sections. --Ludwigs2 15:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing the point of the entry for the Shoud of Turin. The pseudoscience being referred to isn't the valid analysis that have been done—those of course are scientific (by definition of valid analysis). Instead it seems to be included because there are people who, despite the scientific evidence, claim that the studies where flawed for unscientific reasons. The entry does not make this clear and even if it did, I'm not sure that it is worth including. However, these are decisions to be made in the talk page. This is not a reason to delete a page.

We all know that there is the demarcation problem. But don't fall into the trap that if there is continuum you can't distinguish things on either end. There necessarily will be grey areas but most pseudoscience can be readily distinguished from most science. If you have problems with what you think is a grey area discuss it on the talk page, but deleting a page over this is an extreme response. —Fiziker ^t c 16:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fiziker: the AfD was prompted by the mindless resistance I met on the page towards making any changes, not by the nature of the page itself. as I said in the proposal above, I'd happily revise the page to something sane, but I'm not going to:

1. fight with people who are heartily defending an irrational, pejorative set of rules for inclusions
2. leave a page (that almost everyone here acknowledges has serious flaws) in its seriously flawed state because of point 1

Now, if I saw one indication that the proponents of this page were seriously considering ways to improve the inclusion criteria and structure, I'd withdraw this AfD and get to making the page better. unfortunately, what I see (with a few exceptions) is a number of people far more interested in attacking me and defending the status quo than in creating a program for page improvement. please point out that it's been months since the last AfD, and the page is still crappy - this does not speak well to those people who say keep it, we'll improve it. I'll repeat: show me that this page is actually on its way to being something other than mindless trash, or delete it and forget about it. wikipedia does not need a sucky, misinformation-filled page like this one currently is. --Ludwigs2 18:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Enric Naval. --Bduke (Discussion) 22:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per the above. Darrenhusted (talk) 10:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This subject has been a matter of disruption in itself, since it is possible for any editor to brand anything as a pseudo-science in an involved and complex way throughout wiki, which demands a lot of policing, since the term is not only pejorative and polemical rather than scientific, it also serves as a flag of self-publication for self-serving clubs of online self-styled skeptics that amounts to little other than commercial advertisement.

It is rare, on the other hand, to find authorities publishing lists of "stuff that is NOT pseudoscience" - so that the subject is open to non-neutrality inherently. For the same reason, there is no strong cadre of "wikipedians opposed to pseudo-skepticism", and this is liable to skew the present vote. I understand the reason for the proposed deletion but the particular page is only part of the problem. Redheylin (talk) 17:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Procedural Question: were there two previous AfDs? It says this is the third AfD on this topic and I've searched and have not found #s 1 and 2... Valley2city^‽ 15:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They are under the old name: first nomination and second nomination. —Fiziker ^t c 15:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info. It would have been useful for the box at the top... Oh well, consensus is still the same and obvious. Time to close. Valley2city^‽ 18:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Enric Naval. --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:52, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.