Category talk:Pseudoscience

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Science

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Sociology

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Alternative medicine

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Alternative views

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Philosophy: Logic / Science

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Associated task forces:
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	Logic
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This category was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Keep, March 24 2014, see discussion.
Keep/nom withdrawn, January 27 2008, see discussion.
Keep, April 24 2007, see discussion.

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to pseudoscience and fringe science, which has been designated as a contentious topic.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.

Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience

In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision was as follows:

Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience.
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.
Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification.
Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

Archives

Parapsychology

Many of the inclusions are subjective. Is it right to describe all parapsychology as pseudoscience? There are pseudoscientists working in the field (and indeed physics, chemistry etc - witness the cold fusion debacle), but there are also certain people who attempt to employ scientific method. --MacRusgail (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those people do not self describe as parapsychologists; they look for a scientific explanation. For example, Chris French looking at it from a psychology perspective. Considering that science operates under Methodological naturalism and appeals to the supernatural are essentially a form of special pleading which make a stab at wearing the guise of science while they do it. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:48, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What a mess!

A few notes:

I have cleaned up the category page:
- removed links to project namespace
- removed redundant bare url (ext link to dictionary.com - hey we got our own!)
- removed redundant wikilinks
- tweaked layout
I am now trying to clean out the contents. It was a mish-mash of over 250 articles that readers would struggle to wade through.
- Created Category:Pseudoscience literature
- Removed companies, products, unrelated lists, and minor topics that had little to do with the subject.

My attempt to clean it all up is being hampered by editors who do not understand the category guidelines (or convention - they vary!), do not understand the hierarchical nature of topics, and attempt to link everything to everything else. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please focus on the content and policy/guideline issues rather than the editors involved.

There seems to be a great deal of disagreement on whether or not some of the articles are relevant to the subject. Discuss rather than edit-war please if you want to change consensus. --Ronz (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)

You know, I don't really overly care about this category, or even this topic (and not even certain how I saw/got to this page).

But you would be hard pressed to claim that I do not understand the category guidelines and policies : )

Anyway, in reading the arbcomm case, and associated pages, it seems clear that this is a drama-laden topic, and by extension the pages thereof.

So I would think that it would be a good idea to at least provide the opportunity for "enthusiastic editors" to check out certain project pages. Links are cheap. And having links to project pages on a category page (as opposed to categorised IN the category) is very much not uncommon.

Our goal should be to reduce disruption, and if a couple links may help to prevent future disruption, then that's a no brainer, I would think. - jc37 20:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Our goal should be to reduce disruption" Having some familiarity with some of the drama around this topic, let's be clear: our goal first is to improve this encyclopedia. --Ronz (talk) 20:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lol, yes, and one way we do that is by reducing disruption.

I'm not sure what your concerns are, or even what edits your concerned with.

For me it's that the links to the Project pages which cover this topic broadly (WP:FRINGE#PS for example) should be linked in the category page intro. In looking over other situations in categories, it would seem a hatnote would be the best way to go with it.

If you're interested in arguing what should be a member of this category, sorry, I'm not who you're looking for. - jc37 21:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since the links are already here at the top of the talk page, I just added a hatnote to see the talk page. I still think that a link to a related project page should be at the top, but for now, this should suffice. - jc37 21:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One of the problems that's come up is that some articles about practioners/vendors/applications of PS are often placed in the category, such as Samuel Hahnemann, Bach Flower Remedies, Blacklight Power, Ionized bracelet. If these don't belong in PS, then where? Perhaps subcats for "Pseudoscience products", "Pseudoscience advocates", "Pseudoscience companies"? LeadSongDog come howl! 22:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I have already said at the head of this thread they don't need a category relating to pseudoscience since it a non-existent or tenuous relationship. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 07:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So it remains a mess...

...because nothing gets done. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 03:50, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Vani Hari

Vani Hari : pseudoscience?

First of all, she's a person and the article is a BLP, not an article about a theory. I scan for other person's in the list and i find Carl Baugh, a creationist. I find Fred A. Leuchter, a Holocaust denier. These are the people she's being lumped in with for calling out certain chemicals in foods that have some scientific support for being harmful, and for opposing wholesale antiobiotic use in raising animals, and for promoting diets with less sugar and more whole foods? Perhaps it's her support for the concept of toxins and detoxification that has people classifying her as pseudoscience? But these are in fact real concepts within science. Maybe it's based on some long-deleted tweet of hers about vaccination or the air in an airplane being pumped with nitrogen? Those would be considered embarrassing early mistakes, but not a systematic pushing of some kind of pseudoscience.

The guidelines for deciding whether something is pseudoscience states:

Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.

It seems to me that the bulk of her work is actually fairly in line with generally accepted science, and that she has a few vociferous critics who call her work "pseudoscience" but as stated in the above guideline, this does not qualify her for this category. Note that middle of the road scientists such as Dr Marion Nestle, who is in a fairly good position to judge, do not call her work pseudoscience, and merely nudge her to include more nuance in her explanations of science as well as to prioritize her focus to be more effective. That's not pseudoscience. So, i propose removing her from this category, unless a very strong and clear case can be made in accordance with the guidelines. Note that "pseudoscience" is generally seen as pejorative, so special care should be taken when applying this term to a WP:BLP. SageRad (talk) 11:07, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hari certainly does not belong in this category. I had never heard of her work before, but it is clear that she is merely a food activist with a strong agenda. One need not agree with all of her concerns but they are founded on selective use and interpretation of existing scientific research, not upon in themselves false principles which she claims are scientific. HGilbert (talk) 11:23, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

subjective

inclusion of topics here is very subjective - couldn't we include tasseography?Vorbee (talk) 21:32, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion is based on reliable sources. Additionally, for something to be pseudoscience it is typically considered that it be presented by proponents as if it were scientific, or supported by science, when it is not. Tasseography, a divination practice, does not meet that description. But more importantly, "pseudoscience" is not supported by the sources.  Adrian^[232] 16:41, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup

This category is literally overflowing with articles, and has been for several years. Most could be dropped down into new or existing subcategories (or already have been). Obviously, the main article and the main list should stay here, though. 2600:387:A:3:0:0:0:B0 (talk) 03:43, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Creation, ICR, Chiropractic...really?

Aside from the insane amount of non-applicable categories here (Nazi science, chiropractic, Natural News, etc), I don't believe that interpretation of outcomes by scientific outcomes can really be in this category. I.E. Institute for Creation Research, Flood Theory, etc. Just because the majority disagree with the interpretation, does not therefore mean it is immediate quackery. I could not find any substantiated evidence that the PhD's at the ICR were using fake or wrong methods. And as a PhD student at CU Colorado having had a lecture (that I disagreed with) from an ICR PhD, I can attest to this. Nothing in the methods are fake, wrong, or incorrect...just their interpretation. But that is all opinion, and shouldn't fall in this category. Otherwise, we need to put Pluto in here since many scientists still agree that it is a planet. Frankly this "topic" is an excuse for pseudo-intellectuals to place their hated articles in.

73.217.43.51 (talk) 02:59, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Pluto-planet thing is about the definition of the word "planet", and therefore by definition an arbitrary decision and not a scientific question. The fact that you think this could even qualify as a pseudoscience shows that you don't have the first idea what science and pseudoscience is. (Your remarks on other examples confirm this.) The articles, on the other hand, contain reliable sources calling those things pseudoscience. Those sources are more important than the opinion of some random guy on the internet.

But the category is too big, and maybe there should be more subcategories like Category:Pseudopsychology, Category:Pseudobiology and so on. Category:Pseudophysics and Category:Pseudomedicine already exist, and some articles should go there. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:46, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Pseudomedicine is a redirect to Category:Alternative medicine... --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:49, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Trace Amounts film

This is an anti-vaccine film about vaccines causing autism. It is a completely unbalanced review. Volunteer1234 (talk) 18:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]