Ban all theology, metaphysics, and "non-absolute truth" ?

[collect]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =887725648


The editor excising that edit appears to feel that theological and metaphysical claims made in a theological journal, cited, identified and sourced as such, go against the "truth", and the issue is whether any editor can now assert that "scientific absolute truth" is more important than "verifiability" for sources, and that anything which violates the "known absolute truth" must be removed lest it corrupt readers.

[Poetlister]

"Verifiability not truth" is a widely adopted rule on Wikipedia. And of course even in the hard sciences, truth is hard to establish. There should always be some hedge, "According to this refererence ..."

[Alex Shih]

Ah, the good old Guy Macon. No matter which side one takes, being politically or ideologically motivated is just misguided in this context. If the source has not been discredited by RSN, then a blanket revert is downright subjective and wrong.

[iii]

Is there any reason to think that a theologian would be able to properly estimate a meaningful probability in such a fashion? I have yet to meet a theologian who was competent in mathematical treatments of any sort. I also cannot fathom why anyone would think that this particular claim is worth repeating unless, maybe, you were trying to sell Shroud-viewing tickets to the gullible masses.

What was the motivation of those hoping to include a summary of such a ridiculous source?

[collect]

Is there any reason to think that a theologian would be able to properly estimate a meaningful probability in such a fashion? I have yet to meet a theologian who was competent in mathematical treatments of any sort. I also cannot fathom why anyone would think that this particular claim is worth repeating unless, maybe, you were trying to sell Shroud-viewing tickets to the gullible masses.

What was the motivation of those hoping to include a summary of such a ridiculous source?

If the material is relevant to the topic of the article (The "Shroud of Turin" is pretty clearly a topic of interest to theologians), and comes from a source deemed "reliable" for its field, what is the reason to disallow it? That "religion is not truth, therefore nothing about religion belongs in Wikipedia"?


If so, then you need to rewrite Wikipedia policies and guidelines, I fear, and rename the project "Truthopedia".

[Poetlister]

I have yet to meet a theologian who was competent in mathematical treatments of any sort.

You need to get out more.

Bernard Silverman (T-H-L)

[iii]

I have yet to meet a theologian who was competent in mathematical treatments of any sort.

You need to get out more.

Bernard Silverman (T-H-L)

Dude is not a theologian.

[iii]

Is there any reason to think that a theologian would be able to properly estimate a meaningful probability in such a fashion? I have yet to meet a theologian who was competent in mathematical treatments of any sort. I also cannot fathom why anyone would think that this particular claim is worth repeating unless, maybe, you were trying to sell Shroud-viewing tickets to the gullible masses.

What was the motivation of those hoping to include a summary of such a ridiculous source?

If the material is relevant to the topic of the article (The "Shroud of Turin" is pretty clearly a topic of interest to theologians), and comes from a source deemed "reliable" for its field, what is the reason to disallow it? That "religion is not truth, therefore nothing about religion belongs in Wikipedia"?


If so, then you need to rewrite Wikipedia policies and guidelines, I fear, and rename the project "Truthopedia".

It's pretty reasonable to eliminate from contention sources that evaluate it to be "high probability" that this medieval forgery is the actual shroud that wrapped up Jesus. This one isn't even remotely controversial among, y'know, people who think even a little carefully.

[Pudeo]

Wonder why the anti-Quack & pro-science Wikipedians are bothered so much by theology. But they're not opposed to Sokal hoax related postmodernist nonsense like feminist journals publishing excerpts from Mein Kampf or an article about dog park humpings constituting "rape culture" (USA Today article).

Nonsense is good, as long as it's fashionable nonsense.

[iii]

Wonder why the anti-Quack & pro-science Wikipedians are bothered so much by theology. But they're not opposed to Sokal hoax related postmodernist nonsense like feminist journals publishing excerpts from Mein Kampf or an article about dog park humpings constituting "rape culture" (USA Today article).

Nonsense is good, as long as it's fashionable nonsense.

You clearly don't know what I am opposed to and what I'm not opposed to, you alt-right waterboy. I would absolutely object to those fake articles being used as sources for anything. In fact, I have yet to meet a feminist would would argue for those articles to be included. So why did you import that paper tiger?

[Pudeo]

You clearly don't know what I am opposed to and what I'm not opposed to, you alt-right waterboy. I would absolutely object to those fake articles being used as sources for anything. In fact, I have yet to meet a feminist would would argue for those articles to be included. So why did you import that paper tiger?

The Quack Cabal isn't a secret, nor are the political views of the editors. Glad you fit right in.

[iii]

You clearly don't know what I am opposed to and what I'm not opposed to, you alt-right waterboy. I would absolutely object to those fake articles being used as sources for anything. In fact, I have yet to meet a feminist would would argue for those articles to be included. So why did you import that paper tiger?

The Quack Cabal isn't a secret, nor are the political views of the editors. Glad you fit right in.

That's your reply?

Did my comment so cleanly sail over your head that you couldn't even pretend to compose a response?

Cool. Cool.

[Pudeo]

Yeah, so if anyone is interested who the "anti-quack" people are check the Wikirev thread about BullRangifer: http://wikirev.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2130

Then check Strelnikov's blog about MastCell: http://wikipedia-sucks-badly.blogspot.c ... inful.html

Then check who uses JzG's "lunatic charlatans" userbox in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:W ... charlatans

And you will have a pretty good idea of an extremely well-connected group that has several admins which has been active since 2006. Too bad they lost Jytdog.

[greyed.out.fields]

theological

This is the excellent foppery of the world. Theology is just as evidenced based as astrology, but with better PR.

[Dysklyver]

Well say what you want about the anti-Quack cabal, they do get the job done.

[iii]

Well say what you want about the anti-Quack cabal, they do get the job done.

Kinda. If they (we?) actually got the job done they (we?) wouldn't have to continue to be active.

Elsewhere I have offered to give my perspective on this cabal matter. I'm not convinced that anyone really cares, so I'll wait for another thread where it's not so off topic. I'll just quickly remark here on Pudeo's clumsiness; it is right between amusing and disappointing how hard a time critics have piecing together Wikipedia history. Those of you active at the SUCKS forum should ask Eric Barbour for help as he does some of his finest work in such accurate accountings.

[Poetlister]

I have yet to meet a theologian who was competent in mathematical treatments of any sort.

You need to get out more.

Bernard Silverman (T-H-L)

Dude is not a theologian.

I believe he'd disagree. Certainly, he's a Bachelor of Theology, (First Class Honours).

But here are four people who, admittedly, you're unlikely to have met who were all competent mathematicians: Gersonides (T-H-L), Abraham ibn Ezra (T-H-L), Maimonides (T-H-L) and Abraham Zacuto (T-H-L). Three of them were so highly regarded as scientists that they have craters on the Moon named after them: Rabbi Levi (crater) (T-H-L), Abenezra (crater) (T-H-L) and Zagut (crater) (T-H-L).

[iii]

I have yet to meet a theologian who was competent in mathematical treatments of any sort.

You need to get out more.

Bernard Silverman (T-H-L)

Dude is not a theologian.

I believe he'd disagree. Certainly, he's a Bachelor of Theology, (First Class Honours).

Ordained priests typically get theology degrees from their seminaries, but they do not identify as theologians. Anyway, the larger point is that this man, as most religious intellectuals, has the presence of mind not to write ludicrous pieces that assess a high probability for the legitimacy of the Shroud of Turin.

But here are four people who, admittedly, you're unlikely to have met who were all competent mathematicians: Gersonides (T-H-L), Abraham ibn Ezra (T-H-L), Maimonides (T-H-L) and Abraham Zacuto (T-H-L). Three of them were so highly regarded as scientists that they have craters on the Moon named after them: Rabbi Levi (crater) (T-H-L), Abenezra (crater) (T-H-L) and Zagut (crater) (T-H-L).

You are a tiresome lout, aren't you? Yes, it's hard to meet dead people.

If you want me to be clearer, here goes: as a rule, contemporary theologians who try to assess probabilities for supernatural events in pieces they publish in "theological journals" typically do piss-poor scholarship.

[Poetlister]

If you want me to be clearer, here goes: as a rule, contemporary theologians who try to assess probabilities for supernatural events in pieces they publish in "theological journals" typically do piss-poor scholarship.

Why are you picking on theologians? Lots of people publish papers that have rotten statistics. Sociologists are very bad in this respect. Should sociology also be excluded from Wikipedia?

[iii]

If you want me to be clearer, here goes: as a rule, contemporary theologians who try to assess probabilities for supernatural events in pieces they publish in "theological journals" typically do piss-poor scholarship.

Why are you picking on theologians? Lots of people publish papers that have rotten statistics. Sociologists are very bad in this respect. Should sociology also be excluded from Wikipedia?

What is wrong with you?

First of all, I am picking on theologians who pretend that they have a probabilistic understanding of the Shroud of Turin when they clearly don't because that is what this fucking thread is about. It is a gross strawman argument to suggest that this implies I should believe that all of sociology should be eliminated from consideration.

As much as possible, papers that have rotten probabilistic claims should not be referred to. It is inane to imply that every sociology paper suffers from that problem.

[Midsize Jake]

Let's not get all worked up over this...

The "Minimal Facts Approach" subsection was added by User:Sizeofint (T-C-L) in this edit from August 2016, but the original version didn't include the crucial words "using metaphysical arguments." Clearly the subsection should not have been added to the "Scientific perspective" section, because the paper it refers to is not scientific, it's clearly a theology paper (it was published in The Heythrop Journal (T-H-L)). That said, the addition of "using metaphysical arguments" would probably have made it acceptable as an addition to the "Religious perspective" section.

The real problem here is the way the paper is written - it's highly deceptive in this regard, because it's written with a lot of scientific jargon and references, as well as a few "analysis tables" copy-pasted out of a spreadsheet program. You can read a draft version for free here on shroud.com (a website that's far from being an unbiased source in itself). Essentially, the paper lists various scientific objections to the authenticity argument, then immediately dismisses them on the basis of either exhaustively listing names of religious folks who oppose the objection(s), or else sheer sophistry. It then concludes that the Shroud of Turin is most likely authentic, but to its credit, it doesn't end by explicitly saying it's authentic because of how "easy" it was to dismiss the scientific objections, it just says "the probability is very high" and leaves it at that.

I mean, this is literally what the author says about the resurrection of Jesus:

From an historical point of view, the resurrection cannot be seen as implausible, and it has strong defenders in current scholarship. Over the past decade the reliability of the Gospels and the credibility of miracles have been vigorously defended by scholars. Of course if we had a high level of certainty that after his crucifixion Jesus’ body was just ‘a corpse for the wild beasts’, this would mean that the TS [Turin Shroud] could not be the burial cloth of Jesus. But this interpretation is far from compelling to the majority of specialists. It therefore cannot be assumed that the resurrection is implausible.

In other words, he's saying that because we don't know if animals ate Jesus' corpse after his death on the cross, we have to assume that the "Resurrection Theory" explaining the Shroud of Turin must be "plausible," which means the shroud's authenticity is, in itself, plausible too. Okay!

Admittedly this is just my opinion, but to me, it looks like the addition of this little subsection was basically a breaching experiment to try to get a theological argument included in the article as if it were science.

[Kingsindian]

I skimmed the paper (available here). They only considered three hypotheses, and concluded that one of them is most likely. The methods are simple: declare any inconvenient fact as "controversial" (and thus not part of the "minimal facts" approach), and handwave vigorously.

Also, iii's suspicion above that the author doesn't understand mathematics is correct. In particular, they explicitly reject the concept of prior probability in their hypothesis testing.

As to whether it should be included in Wikipedia, I would say no. It's verifiable, of course, but there's a lot of verifiable nonsense around.

[Kingsindian]

Wonder why the anti-Quack & pro-science Wikipedians are bothered so much by theology. But they're not opposed to Sokal hoax related postmodernist nonsense like feminist journals publishing excerpts from Mein Kampf or an article about dog park humpings constituting "rape culture" (USA Today article).

Nonsense is good, as long as it's fashionable nonsense.

I don't understand your point. Sokal is a Marxist himself. Political views do not directly translate to scientific skepticism.

[Poetlister]

Also, iii's suspicion above that the author doesn't understand mathematics is correct. In particular, they explicitly reject the concept of prior probability in their hypothesis testing.

That just means that they disapprove of Bayesian methodology. In that, they'd have the support of both winners so far of the new International Prize in Statistics, supposedly the equivalent of a Nobel Prize.

[Kingsindian]

No, I'm pretty sure that they just don't understand it.

[Kumioko]

Fron a strictly scientific standpoint it is entirely possible.

Prior to the widespread use of embalming, people would occassionally "come back to life" after being pronounced dead. In fact people used to sit in cemeteries and listen for bells that ran out of the gravesites in case it happened after they were buried.

[Jim]

In fact people used to sit in cemeteries and listen for bells that ran out of the gravesites in case it happened after they were buried.

Got an example of this?

[iii]

Admittedly this is just my opinion, but to me, it looks like the addition of this little subsection was basically a breaching experiment to try to get a theological argument included in the article as if it were science.

Collect's salacious titling of this thread certainly seems to indicate that his posting here was meant as a little breaching experiment -- and it seems to have done the trick on some of the simpler folk.

Oh, you're removing text about a shitty article from Wikipedia? You nincompoop! It's published in a peer-reviewed journal just like all your "science". You must want to ban all theology, metaphysics, and non-absolute truth, you jag.

[collect]

Admittedly this is just my opinion, but to me, it looks like the addition of this little subsection was basically a breaching experiment to try to get a theological argument included in the article as if it were science.

Collect's salacious titling of this thread certainly seems to indicate that his posting here was meant as a little breaching experiment -- and it seems to have done the trick on some of the simpler folk.

Oh, you're removing text about a shitty article from Wikipedia? You nincompoop! It's published in a peer-reviewed journal just like all your "science". You must want to ban all theology, metaphysics, and non-absolute truth, you jag.

Thread "titles" are essentially to fora what "headlines" are for newspapers. If they do not engage readers, they are worthless. Something I learned well over three decades ago on CompuServe.


Meanwhile, "salacious" is rather peculiarly used here - it means related to pornography or similar sexual matters. I daresay the questions raised are totally unrelated to "sexy stuff" entirely, and your thesaurus should be replaced.

[iii]

Meanwhile, "salacious" is rather peculiarly used here - it means related to pornography or similar sexual matters. I daresay the questions raised are totally unrelated to "sexy stuff" entirely, and your thesaurus should be replaced.

You don't think your attempt to provide intellectual clickbait was titillating? Are you prudishly offended that I compared your over-hyped source fetish to intellectual pornography?

[collect]

Meanwhile, "salacious" is rather peculiarly used here - it means related to pornography or similar sexual matters. I daresay the questions raised are totally unrelated to "sexy stuff" entirely, and your thesaurus should be replaced.

You don't think your attempt to provide intellectual clickbait was titillating? Are you prudishly offended that I compared your over-hyped source fetish to intellectual pornography?

Wow. Ever get out of the house? Choosing interesting titles for topics is not and has never been pornography nor is this topic remotely sexual in nature.


This forum welcomes subjects which attract serious real discussion, and I rather fear that your derailing attempts having nothing whatsoever to do with the topic ill-serve this locale. Au revoir, I trust.

[collect]

In fact people used to sit in cemeteries and listen for bells that ran out of the gravesites in case it happened after they were buried.

Got an example of this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_coffin Bells and all.


And Mary Baker Eddy was rumored to have a telephone!


Each year, several dozen cases of people "prematurely pronounced dead" occur, though embalming seems to prevent being buried alive.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317645.php for example.

[Midsize Jake]

This forum welcomes subjects which attract serious real discussion, and I rather fear that your derailing attempts having nothing whatsoever to do with the topic ill-serve this locale. Au revoir, I trust.

Indeed - and more to the point, while some of us do disagree with Mr. Collect here about the efficacy and/or inclusion of this particular source in this particular WP article, formulating thread titles that influence people to click on them is something that every forum site needs, even though some might find it distasteful in some way. So let's not look askance on members who show talent in that direction.

I mean, within reason, obviously.

[Ming]

The thing is that the article on the shroud is always going to be a mess because, at this point, other than the not-all-that-great carbon dating, one side is operating from "since it is a fake" and to some large degree speculating on that basis, while the believer side is going to pick apart that speculation without really having much to go on from their own side. From a theological point of view the thing is largely meaningless except as being maybe miraculous, but nothing more. It's never going to be possible to keep the article reasonably short.

[Poetlister]

The thing is that the article on the shroud is always going to be a mess because, at this point, other than the not-all-that-great carbon dating, one side is operating from "since it is a fake" and to some large degree speculating on that basis, while the believer side is going to pick apart that speculation without really having much to go on from their own side. From a theological point of view the thing is largely meaningless except as being maybe miraculous, but nothing more. It's never going to be possible to keep the article reasonably short.

Further, because it's such a high profile topic, the article is bound to be a flash point between believers and atheists.

[collect]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... re_biased.


Has now been placed in project-space by a third party.


Opinions thereon?

[Midsize Jake]

Opinions thereon?

If they're going to make it official, they're going to need a much longer list.

Also, this essay doesn't specify who the word "we" refers to...

[Poetlister]

The tone of that essay is all wrong. It implies that there is a set of preconceptions such that Wikipedians inherently prefer things with a certain label and dislike things with a different label. We can probably all agree with Jimbo (!) that if something gets an article in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal, whatever it's called, it should be covered appropriately.

[Midsize Jake]

The tone of that essay is all wrong. It implies that there is a set of preconceptions such that Wikipedians inherently prefer things with a certain label and dislike things with a different label.

Agreed, but it's not just the tone, they've got factual errors in there too. For example, if they were really biased in favor of laundry detergent, the article about laundry detergent wouldn't have an "Environmental concerns" section.

Jeez, figure it out, Wikipedians!

[iii]

This forum welcomes subjects which attract serious real discussion, and I rather fear that your derailing attempts having nothing whatsoever to do with the topic ill-serve this locale. Au revoir, I trust.

Indeed - and more to the point, while some of us do disagree with Mr. Collect here about the efficacy and/or inclusion of this particular source in this particular WP article, formulating thread titles that influence people to click on them is something that every forum site needs, even though some might find it distasteful in some way. So let's not look askance on members who show talent in that direction.

I mean, within reason, obviously.

It's only an askance look if you think that pornography in and of itself is somehow inherently objectionable, as I suppose Mr. Collect feels. I, however, find nothing objectionable about being salacious in many contexts.

I mean, within reason, obviously.

[Moral Hazard]

Also, iii's suspicion above that the author doesn't understand mathematics is correct. In particular, they explicitly reject the concept of prior probability in their hypothesis testing.

That just means that they disapprove of Bayesian methodology. In that, they'd have the support of both winners so far of the new International Prize in Statistics, supposedly the equivalent of a Nobel Prize.

Both Sir David Cox and Bradley Efron have published papers on Bayesian statistics.

I believe that in actuarial studies Cox is thought to be a Bayesian (rather than a high church Fisherian)!

[Poetlister]

Both Sir David Cox and Bradley Efron have published papers on Bayesian statistics.

I had a section about Bayesian methods in my thesis. That proves nothing.

[Moral Hazard]

Both Sir David Cox and Bradley Efron have published papers on Bayesian statistics.

I had a section about Bayesian methods in my thesis. That proves nothing.

Those two published their papers, and people read them.

[Kingsindian]

Anyone is welcome to read the subsection "Plausibility" in the "Resurrection Hypothesis" section and decide for themselves whether the author has any clue about mathematics, inference (Bayesian or otherwise) or statistics.