Contents

Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Old: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:23, 2 March 2007

Dedicated to creating and adding to articles related to science and philosophy, while checking the POV currently present in various Wikipedia articles dealing with such topics as psychics, magick, "alternative" medicines, etc.

The neutral point of view must be preserved where it exists and created where it does not exist.

This WikiProject aims primarily to coordinate the efforts of Wikipedians who wish to promote science and reason in an effort to improve the general quality and range of Wikipedia articles on various topics, while maintaining the NPOV.

The goals of this WikiProject are as follows:

1. To create new articles relating to science and reason.
2. To create new Wikipedia articles regarding those topics not yet covered by Wikipedia, but which are covered by The Skeptic's Dictionary.
3. To place pseudoscience tags on articles related to pseudoscience, fraudster tags on articles concerning convicted fraudsters, and add to criticisms sections where criticism is due.
4. To identify cases of fraud and other unethical/illegal activities undertaken by religious and quasi-religious organizations, as they often go unreported.
5. To improve those articles which need help.
6. To serve as a nexus and discussion area for editors interested in doing such work.

Guidelines proposal

See the talk page for this discussion.

Assessment

• Assessment Page, for WikiProject Rational Skepticism - Tool that will automatically categorize articles, after they have been assessed as per instructions on assessment page.

Collaboration

{{RationalSkepticismCollaboration}}

To do

{{RationalSkepticismTasks}}

Wikiproject:Skepticism (editordiscuss this box)

• Open tasks:
  • Remove pseudoscience from the articles needing immediate attention.

Turn our Good Articles into Feature Articles.

• Improve:
  • Subliminal stimuli - Includes some pseudoscience but no mention of such for WP:PSCI
  • Illusion - Currently listed at article for improvement (WP:TAFI)
  • Objections to evolution - From Good Article to Feature Article
  • Correlation does not imply causation - Improve
  • Allopathic medicine - Improve or merge (has been considered POV fork)
  • Second sight - Has been proposed as mostly Celtic/Gaelic context of extrasensory perception but suggestions to merge in it have also been made. Recently called to attention via WP:FTN.
  • Chris Kilham - BLP: Promotional tone and unbalanced pseudomedical claims
  • Dosha - Needs mostly rewriting
  • Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health - WP:PSCI

Items inactive for too long can be removed

• Active subprojects
  • Skeptical organisations in Europe
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Skepticism Stub Sub-Project Project (SSSPP)

Article banner

{{Rational Skepticism}}

The WikiProject banner below should be moved to this page's talk page. If this is a demonstration of the template, please set the parameter |category=no to prevent this page being miscategorised.

Skepticism NA‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles NA This page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Please list your interests and specialties.

Active members

• Frexe
• Fyslee - Interests: chiroquackery, sCAM, homeopathy, etc.
• Pain
• Hitchhiker89^talk 17:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• CCMichalZ 17:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Qarnos 23:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Michaelfavor 02:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• dino ^talk
• Andries ^talk
• Prosfilaes 20:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Krash (Talk)
• BillC ^talk – electrical engineer. 23:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Jredwards
• DartFrog ^talk - My aim is to help present all articles as straightforward and unbiased towards their subject matter.
• Lundse Checking on POV'ed entries and pseudoscience.
• MaxMangel^talk Skeptic, with interest in false memory
• porges ; wikipedia needs close watch :)
• Bhumiya - My specialties are creationism, bioconservatism, and other political/religious topics, but I also have some experience with Scientology, astrology, etc.
• SuMadre- Interests: Creationism and Evolution
• Smiloid- Interests: Paranormal occult
• jpowell - Interests: sCAM and general quackery.
• fel64 19:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• ScienceApologist
• Mulder talk I'm an expert with almost all Paranormal subjects
• David Mestel - Interests: pseudomedicine. 06:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• TurabianNights - pseudoarchaeology, alternative medicine, neopagan historical appropriation
• Cybercobra - creationism
• Levine2112 - differentiating between a skeptic and a "True Disbeliever"
• Cri du canard -- all forms of quackery. At the moment, concerned with the systematic bias in the orthomolecular medicine series of articles.
• Davidstrauss: creationism, new age religion, alternative medicine, etc.
• Edhubbard: adding data from neuroscientific explanations, where applicable, for unusual experiences such as auras (see synesthesia), phantom limbs, out of body experiences, religious visitation (see temporal lobe epilepsy), and deja vu to combat bias towards mystical POVs.
• K-UNIT: interested in pretty much anything, with a major interest in the historicity of Religions, Abduction phenomenon/Sleep Paralysis and the like.
• xSAMIx. Have knowledge on paranormal and occult and believe that Wikipedia needs people who know about the subjects yet can remain neutral involved.
• SSPecter Since 18 October 2006. Im interested in religion, science, pseudo-science, Information technology, AI.
• Havermayer. I have a broad interest in all skeptical issues. I know quite a bit about creationism, and am currently investigating alternative medicine.
• Openminded skeptic. Primarily interested in claims of paranormal phenomena, occult myths and ritual, UFOlogy etc. — e. ripley\^talk
• NeoFreak. I have taken a great interest of late in the subculture of Otherkin, Draconity, Vampire lifestyle and related "articles", and the need to source them.
• Bduke. Scientist (chemist) and member of Australian Skeptics with varied interests.
• Doczilla 00:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC) - psychology professor[reply]
• Długosz ^talk — wants to promote education and critical thinking.
• Badbilltucker - Probably not in a big way, adding banners to appropriate articles, that sort of thing.
• Zaparojdik - Interests: Creationism and Evolution
• Belbo Casaubon - Interests: The New Age and Fortune Telling
• LuckyLouie - Interests: pseudoscientific claims of "paranormal investigation" and "ghost hunting" groups, mediums, psychics, and spiritualists.
• Audacity: backmasking, hidden message, subliminal message, theomatics, pareidolia
• Smee 13:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Wikidudeman ^{(talk)- Interests: Religion, Physics, Biology, Bodybuilding, Debate, Mathematics & more.}
• Titanium Dragon - Biomedical Engineering major, graduate in 2 months. Interests: Religion, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Biology, Fantasy (particularly Dragons), Astronomy

Inactive members

• Maprov^(Founder)
• Jokermage ^{Not in right now, leave me a message}

  Reason: I have other things that I need to be focusing on, so I won't be able to participate in this project as much as I'd like. I'll still be watching this page to keep up with current events. If you feel the need to respond, please do it on my talk page. 06:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hob Gadling

  Same reason here. --Hob Gadling 20:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• —Nightstallion (?)

I lack the time due to other wikiactivities, but still consider myself part of this particular WikiProject in spirit. =]

• Feureau

Same reason here. Feureau 10:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Bubba73 ^talk - Joined 1/31/06. I was active on pseudoscience articles, but I had to cut down on my Wikipedia hours, so I'm mostly inactive now.
• Askolnick: alternative medicine, quackery, transcendental mediation, creationism/Intelligent design, science & medical journalism, and other areas of pseudoscience --He blanked his user page and left with the comment "Wikipedia is really not worth the enormous effort to write and edit articles and protect them from the myriad of Vandal tribes seeking to plunder the popularity of this source. Fighting against the dishonest changes of anonymous, often Single Purpose Account editors, is just not worth it." Let's hope it's just a temporary bout of wikistress, but perhaps we can contact him and encourage him to come back. Edhubbard 11:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Jamie Guinn 07:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC) Will check in time to time and help when I can.[reply]

Project member banner and userbox

{{Rational Skepticism-Member}}

This user is a member of WikiProject Skepticism, which seeks to improve the quality of articles dealing with science, pseudosciences and skepticism. Please feel free to join us. The only thing that benefits from doubt is truth.

{{User WikiProject Rational Skepticism}}

This user is a participant in WikiProject Skepticism.

Skeptic watchlists

A page for skeptics to post their watchlist suggestions, or links to their own watchlists:

• Skeptic watchlists

Relevant user categories

• Category:Skeptical Wikipedians

Relevant userboxes

Relevant article possibilities parked here

• List of articles related to quackery

Featured articles

• Carl Sagan
• Isaac Asimov

Good articles

• Richard Dawkins

Did you knows (DYKs)

Former featured articles

Former good articles

• Immanuel Velikovsky has a number of claims regarding Velikovsky being shown "correct" in his theories or flummuxoing the academic communities that need to be vetted for accuracy.

What, you mean the way the article states: "Put most concisely, it can be said that Velikovsky's theories have been wholly rejected by mainstream academia, often vociferously.", and where it notes that even in the few ironic cases where ideas V was lambasted for have made their way into the mainstream (e.g. extinction of the dinosaurs by an asteroid impact), the "mainstream academia contends that its acceptance of such ideas has little or nothing to do with Velikovsky's work, which is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions by academia. Moreover, Velikovsky's unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) is viewed by most orthodox scholars as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions"? I fail to see the problem.--feline1 14:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Morgellons article under attack from newbie. Needs watching and probably reverting until (s)he learns to collaborate and edit properly. -- Fyslee 19:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• New article Joint manipulation needs to be watched. Bubba73 (talk), 01:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Help newcomer with Quackwatch, please! I'm new to "edit wars" and want to develop skills and techniques to make GOOD edits to these articles. I characterize changes on the talk page, address criticisms to my changes, etc. Please lend support and proper constructive criticism and help me deal with those who just don't want information presented, and how to separate them from legitimate feedback. —Długosz December 21, 2006

• Basava Premanand - skeptic and rationalist from Tamil Nadu, India - article could use expansion, pictures, and more sourced citations. Smee 11:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Urgent attention needed here:

• Hair analysis in alternative medicine, medical research and in consumer experiments. The article Hair analysis in (alternative medicine) has been hijacked and renamed to the above by promoters of alt med.

-- Fyslee 17:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Pseudoscience