Wikipedia’s crusade against "fringe views" generally

[The Devil's Advocate]

The fact is that what the article describes is not terribly unusual for editors devoted to debunking fringe views. Anyone who defies the debunkers gets attacked as an adherent or some sort of unethical enabler of adherents. Shower room talk about and bullying towards the horrible fringers or their defenders is common on article talk pages, user talk pages, and even conduct noticeboards with admins doing little to nothing to dissuade such behavior. Many times admins engage in it themselves. It is easy to get away with because there are so many people sympathetic to the views of the debunkers that only the most egregious misconduct can convince anyone of a need for action.

[Hersch]

The fact is that what the article describes is not terribly unusual for editors devoted to debunking fringe views. Anyone who defies the debunkers gets attacked as an adherent or some sort of unethical enabler of adherents. Shower room talk about and bullying towards the horrible fringers or their defenders is common on article talk pages, user talk pages, and even conduct noticeboards with admins doing little to nothing to dissuade such behavior. Many times admins engage in it themselves. It is easy to get away with because there are so many people sympathetic to the views of the debunkers that only the most egregious misconduct can convince anyone of a need for action.

Wikipedia policy strongly encourages the creation of articles that "expose" the badness of fringe theories. All you need is one secondary source that "commented on it, disparaged it, or discussed it," setting the bar rather low IMHO. A source that commented favorably is ipso facto inadmissible, because it will be seen as tainted by "promulgators and popularizers."

[Ming]

The fact is that what the article describes is not terribly unusual for editors devoted to debunking fringe views. Anyone who defies the debunkers gets attacked as an adherent or some sort of unethical enabler of adherents. Shower room talk about and bullying towards the horrible fringers or their defenders is common on article talk pages, user talk pages, and even conduct noticeboards with admins doing little to nothing to dissuade such behavior. Many times admins engage in it themselves. It is easy to get away with because there are so many people sympathetic to the views of the debunkers that only the most egregious misconduct can convince anyone of a need for action.

Ming would really like to know what should be done instead. To take some examples:

What should be done about solfeggio frequencies (T-H-L), which anyone who knows anything about music theory and history can see is utter bollocks that some crank made up one day?

What about all the cryptoarchaeology? There's the ever-popular Newport Tower (Rhode Island) (T-H-L), which in spite of being identical in form to a British prototype is claimed for a whole range of more or less exotic originators.

Occasionally there are attempts engage editors on this stuff, but it almost never turns out well. There were many attempts to get the various proponents of PROUT and Ananda Marga to help write decent articles, but they were never interested in anything beyond writing advertizing leaflets. The articles are still junk.

The people who create these articles are almost without exception on a Crusade to Reveal the Truth and are almost never willing to work from a perspective that is anything less than credulous. The ones who can be persuaded to write like scholars are the worst to deal with because of their cargo cult of research; the ones who get nasty about it are actually easier to deal with than the rest because the latter turn into tar babies of passive-aggression whom it is very hard to show the door.

[Hersch]

The fact is that what the article describes is not terribly unusual for editors devoted to debunking fringe views. Anyone who defies the debunkers gets attacked as an adherent or some sort of unethical enabler of adherents. Shower room talk about and bullying towards the horrible fringers or their defenders is common on article talk pages, user talk pages, and even conduct noticeboards with admins doing little to nothing to dissuade such behavior. Many times admins engage in it themselves. It is easy to get away with because there are so many people sympathetic to the views of the debunkers that only the most egregious misconduct can convince anyone of a need for action.

Ming would really like to know what should be done instead.

Please tell Ming that an actual encyclopedia would ignore these topics.

[Ming]

Well, maybe not. There are after all plenty of encyclopedia-like works on crackpottery, some of them credulous and some of them skeptical. The latter tend to be, well, not very polite about it.

[The Devil's Advocate]

Please tell Ming that an actual encyclopedia would ignore these topics.

That's actually not true. While there probably aren't any general encyclopedias with articles covering specific conspiracy theories, various other fringe views do get their own articles and many are covered significantly in the main article about the subject. Such views are not treated in any decent or accurate manner in those works either and are often treated worse.

[Hersch]

Well, maybe not. There are after all plenty of encyclopedia-like works on crackpottery, some of them credulous and some of them skeptical. The latter tend to be, well, not very polite about it.

Well, this leads to more general topics, such as (1) are "encyclopedia-like works" a good thing? Wikipedia is certainly an example of such. My personal opinion is that "encyclopedia-like works" are generally a concerted effort to push POV, or to control public opinion by enforcing a form of orthodoxy. In other words, propaganda. One so-called reference work which is used very enthusiastically as a source throughout Wikipedia is Conspiracy Theories in American History - An Encyclopedia (Peter Knight, Editor). Based on my brief perusal, I conclude that, firstly, it is full of crap, and secondly, the authors appear to have relied upon Wikipedia to a large extent when assembling the material for the articles, so it's a mutually reinforcing relationship.

The other topic worth exploring (2) is how to properly define "conspiracy theory." It seems to me to mean mainly "an unorthodox explanation of events," since there are many official, widely accepted explanations that involve conspiracies (such as the "Osama bin Laden did 911" conspiracy, based on very slender evidence,) but since they official and widely accepted, they are not formally deemed to be "conspiracy theory."

[Ming]

Such views are not treated in any decent or accurate manner in those works either and are often treated worse.

Exactly what is indecent or inaccurate about such treatment?

[iii]

My personal opinion is that "encyclopedia-like works" are generally a concerted effort to push POV, or to control public opinion by enforcing a form of orthodoxy. In other words, propaganda.

Welcome to Wikipedia! I'm glad that you want to work on "Fringe Content"!

First you have to decide whether you are a deletionist or an inclusionist.

If you are a deletionist, then you will probably labor mostly at removing content and nominating articles for deletion. You will likely be accused of being brutish, unwelcoming, and/or a censor.

If you are an inclusionist you will either end up in one of two groups:

1) If you insist on relying on the limited commentary and vulgar scholarship that exists on unorthodox ideas, you will be labeled a libelous attack dog who blindly promotes the status quo and oppresses the new thought. You will likely be accused of being sociopathic, mercenary, and/or intolerant.

2) If you try to be anything from accommodating to laudatory in your attempts to write about unorthodox ideas, you will be labeled a promoter of fringe ideas and a general crackpot. You will likely be accused of being ingenuous, unlearned, and/or anti-intellectual.

[The Devil's Advocate]

Exactly what is indecent or inaccurate about such treatment?

Consider Britannica's take on the Shakespeare authorship question (T-H-L), which is written more as a polemical simplification of the debate rather than an objective overview of the facts. There are more examples, but I think you may understand what I am saying. Wikipedia, at least, allows for more open consideration of the alternative view, even if it has a hostile behind-the-scenes environment and still produces a somewhat biased result. It inhibits a broader understanding of such subjects and limits further inquiry into broader implications of the debate to promote or tolerate the kind of cultural hostility towards dissenting views that exists in these sorts of discussions.

[Hersch]

I am personally somewhat anti-encyclopedia. The original encyclopedists' movement in France was not an effort to educate, but to control. Jimbo's "sum of all human knowledge" is likewise an attempt to assert a monopoly over "truth," despite the protestations to the contrary and the prattle about NPOV.

[Ming]

Exactly what is indecent or inaccurate about such treatment?

Consider Britannica's take on the Shakespeare authorship question (T-H-L), which is written more as a polemical simplification of the debate rather than an objective overview of the facts. There are more examples, but I think you may understand what I am saying. Wikipedia, at least, allows for more open consideration of the alternative view, even if it has a hostile behind-the-scenes environment and still produces a somewhat biased result. It inhibits a broader understanding of such subjects and limits further inquiry into broader implications of the debate to promote or tolerate the kind of cultural hostility towards dissenting views that exists in these sorts of discussions.

Well, one can look at the Wikipedia versions (this being spread over several articles) and see that, absent the EB's conclusion, its material also all appears in the WP articles, but at greater length and padded out with information which in the EB version is irrelevant. Given the constant battle over the WP article, Ming is tempted to attribute the difference partly to the need in the EB for reasonable brevity (unfortunately rarely considered on WP) and partly due to a tendency in WP to "solve" long-running controversies by giving everybody a piece of the action, thus subverting the orthodox version for those who don't know how to read the code. But also, anyone who reads the Britannica expecting to find anything other than the magisterial viewpoint on every subject doesn't understand what he is reading.

[The Devil's Advocate]

Well, one can look at the Wikipedia versions (this being spread over several articles) and see that, absent the EB's conclusion, its material also all appears in the WP articles, but at greater length and padded out with information which in the EB version is irrelevant. Given the constant battle over the WP article, Ming is tempted to attribute the difference partly to the need in the EB for reasonable brevity (unfortunately rarely considered on WP) and partly due to a tendency in WP to "solve" long-running controversies by giving everybody a piece of the action, thus subverting the orthodox version for those who don't know how to read the code. But also, anyone who reads the Britannica expecting to find anything other than the magisterial viewpoint on every subject doesn't understand what he is reading.

I think if one were to look at the Wikipedia version as opposed to the Britannica version that individual would have a better understanding of the subject and, while likely still adhering to the mainstream view at the end, come away with a more reasonable perspective on the fringe view. The Britannica version, to put it simply, actively discourages critical thought, while the Wikipedia version makes some effort to encourage it. Another important aspect is that certain views, even if not legitimate, precipitate discussions that lead to the revelation of previously hidden truths. Of course, in other fringe topics covered on Wikipedia the main articles are a more of a mess, even if they still manage to avoid the polemical biases of other information sources. Their lesser status is typically because those articles are dominated by a groups of debunkers who employ many different unsavory tactics to minimize fair treatment of the topic and to eliminate dissenting voices.

[Ming]

...which really implies (a) an assumption and (b) a difference in opinion about what the right answer actually is. The assumption is about how and why people are reading these texts in the first place. If someone wants a reasonably succinct answer to "did Shakespeare actually write his plays", then the Eb delivers and WP does not. And ironically the WP article refers to a statistical analysis which appears to give a much stronger "yes" answer than EB does, but it tucks this away in a corner of the article, most likely to ensure that the casual reader doesn't come across it. If someone wants just to see all the evidence, then yes, the WP article is in that sense superior. But most people don't trust WP for that, so it's debatable whether that cause is worth working towards. And the WP article's real answer is, "it could have been him or any of these other candidates." There is room for argument as to whether readers are well-served by this answer, particularly since scholarly discussion of the evidence has to be suppressed as content in order to get here.

Ming supposes, though, that this really discredits the notion that Britannica gives that much structure to Wikipedia. It could be argued that at this point EB's model is relentlessly Enlightenment modern, whereas WP is quite postmodern in the way it dodges away from committing to one version of the "Truth".

[EricBarbour]

I am personally somewhat anti-encyclopedia. The original encyclopedists' movement in France was not an effort to educate, but to control.

Well, I've never seen any complaints about the Diderot article, and it says the following:

Diderot's work, however, was mired in controversy from the beginning; the project was suspended by the courts in 1752. Just as the second volume was completed accusations arose, regarding seditious content, concerning the editor's entries on religion and natural law. Diderot was detained and his house was searched for manuscripts for subsequent articles. But the search proved fruitless as no manuscripts could be found. They were hidden in the house of an unlikely confederate–Chretien de Lamoignon Malesherbes, the very official who ordered the search. Although Malesherbes was a staunch absolutist-loyal to the monarchy, he was sympathetic to the literary project. Along with his support, and that of other well-placed influential confederates, the project resumed. Diderot returned to his efforts only to be constantly embroiled in controversy.

These twenty years were to Diderot not merely a time of incessant drudgery, but harassing persecution and desertion of friends. The ecclesiastical party detested the Encyclopédie, in which they saw a rising stronghold for their philosophic enemies. By 1757 they could endure it no longer. The subscribers had grown from 2,000 to 4,000, a measure of the growth of the work in popular influence and power. The Encyclopédie threatened the governing social classes of France (aristocracy) because it took for granted the justice of religious tolerance, freedom of thought, and the value of science and industry. It asserted the doctrine that the main concern of the nation's government ought to be the nation's common people. It was believed that the Encyclopédie was the work of an organized band of conspirators against society, and that the dangerous ideas they held were made truly formidable by their open publication. In 1759, the Encyclopédie was formally suppressed. The decree did not stop the work, which went on, but its difficulties increased by the necessity of being clandestine. Jean le Rond d'Alembert withdrew from the enterprise and other powerful colleagues, including Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, declined to contribute further to a book which had acquired a bad reputation.

Unless you're implying that Diderot was using the Encyclopédie to propagandize anti-monarchism, freethinking and tolerance for others, that doesn't sound like a project dedicated to "thought control".

As for the Shakespeare business, I've resisted writing it up, because it's an unholy mess, on and off WP. Anyone care to take a crack at a summary?

[Hersch]

Unless you're implying that Diderot was using the Encyclopédie to propagandize anti-monarchism, freethinking and tolerance for others, that doesn't sound like a project dedicated to "thought control".

I understand the question you are raising, and I don't think I can really answer it properly without plunging headlong into tldr-land.

I'll try to merely hint at an answer with two brief points: first of all, the fact that these Enlightenment figures opposed absolutism does not transform them into the Good Guys. Sometimes there are simply two competing sets of Bad Guys; think of how many people are clinging to Obama simply because they hate the Republicans. Meanwhile, Obama is starting war after war, executing people via drones without even knowing who they are, moving to dismantle Social Security and the other remnants of the social safety net, trying to crush whistleblowers, in short, doing everything that people fear the Republicans might do.

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

[EricBarbour]

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

That looks like a very good summary to me. No problem.

[EricBarbour]

Because no one else seems interested, I've done a summary of the Shakespeare squabble.

basis

For centuries since his death, academics have argued over the identity, and even the very existence, of William Shakespeare. Some claim that Shakespeare's works were actually ghost-written by Edward De Vere. Some point to Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon. Some Arabs believe that his real name was "Sheikh Zubair" and that he was an expatriate Arab. A few Russian academics have claimed he was Russian, Turks have tried to claim him as Turkish, Nazis tried to claim he was an "Aryan", and so forth. In this postmodern world, not many are willing to say that he was the "Bard of Stratford".

The official Wikipedia article is presently almost 148k bytes and incoherent, with 250 references (to the same few books), thanks to endless editwarring since it was started in February 2002, ironically by an editor called "Unknown". As in the "real world", the Wiki-world was full of spluttering over these claims. Similar fights involved any and all related articles, even Hamnet Shakespeare. Various administrators, Giano and his friend Bishonen, and a motley crew of English history buffs were dragged into the orbit of the black hole.
[edit] history

A mediation was attempted in October 2006. It failed, of course.

A 2007 proposal to promote the main article to "Featured Article" status failed, after massive amounts of argumentation. Starting in June, a "peer review" discussion of Shakespeare began to attract fighting.[1] At the same time, someone bizarrely tried to delete the list of Shakespeare's works. Related articles attracted AFDs.[2][3][4] There are too many mentions of this dispute on various noticeboards to list here.

An attempt to start an RFC in October 2010 was disappeared. A mediation in January failed, and a mediation in September went nowhere, both as usual with Wikipedia mediations. More madness:[5][6]

In early 2011, it was finally dragged to arbitration. Editor and De Vere fan NinaGreen was banned for one year, fellow De Vere fan "Smatprt" was topic-banned for one year and later banned permanently. Others were issued short blocks or topic restrictions. As soon as their bans expired, they went back to arguing. (Smatprt already had his own special section on AN/I.)

A March 2011 proposal to give the main article Featured Article status attracted massive amounts of argumentation. This time, it was promoted.

Another mediation, in May 2012, also went nowhere.

As of 2013, Wikiproject Shakespeare is watching 1,071 articles, mostly stubs or very short ones, and appears to be a nearly-dead project in any case. One of its founders in 2007: Steven Walling. The squabble over authorship continues, anyway.

[The Devil's Advocate]

...which really implies (a) an assumption and (b) a difference in opinion about what the right answer actually is. The assumption is about how and why people are reading these texts in the first place. If someone wants a reasonably succinct answer to "did Shakespeare actually write his plays", then the Eb delivers and WP does not. And ironically the WP article refers to a statistical analysis which appears to give a much stronger "yes" answer than EB does, but it tucks this away in a corner of the article, most likely to ensure that the casual reader doesn't come across it. If someone wants just to see all the evidence, then yes, the WP article is in that sense superior. But most people don't trust WP for that, so it's debatable whether that cause is worth working towards. And the WP article's real answer is, "it could have been him or any of these other candidates." There is room for argument as to whether readers are well-served by this answer, particularly since scholarly discussion of the evidence has to be suppressed as content in order to get here.

Ming supposes, though, that this really discredits the notion that Britannica gives that much structure to Wikipedia. It could be argued that at this point EB's model is relentlessly Enlightenment modern, whereas WP is quite postmodern in the way it dodges away from committing to one version of the "Truth".

To get back to my point on this, the idea is that while other information sources would typically just insist you believe a certain accepted view, Wikipedia can create a source of information that actually provokes critical thought without making the predominant perspective seem less compelling. In this respect, the bullying mentalities of debunkers is a disservice as they tend to drive away the more impartial contributors as well as the fringe adherents. What you are left with when that group dominates is usually a disorganized shell of an article or some slanted hit piece. Other information sources simply make little, if any, allowance for input from opposing views so they tend to be one-sided.

[Poetlister]

Jimbo's "sum of all human knowledge" is likewise an attempt to assert a monopoly over "truth," despite the protestations to the contrary and the prattle about NPOV.

You can accuse Jimbo of many things. However, I doubt that these include a deliberate attempt to assert a monopoly over "truth".

[Ming]

To get back to my point on this, the idea is that while other information sources would typically just insist you believe a certain accepted view, Wikipedia can create a source of information that actually provokes critical thought without making the predominant perspective seem less compelling. In this respect, the bullying mentalities of debunkers is a disservice as they tend to drive away the more impartial contributors as well as the fringe adherents. What you are left with when that group dominates is usually a disorganized shell of an article or some slanted hit piece. Other information sources simply make little, if any, allowance for input from opposing views so they tend to be one-sided.

The perennial issue, though, is that the effect is to make the po-mo-but-inaccurate claim that there isn't any particular truth. Or more typically, that everyone gets to have their own truth. There are places where that kind of ambiguity is appropriate: if you look at the biblical text crit articles, for instance, there's a great deal of laying out of alternate viewpoints because there's no one viewpoint that has managed to emerge triumphant. On the other hand there's a perennial (and occaisionally acute) struggle at Christ myth theory (T-H-L) because it's a minority position that keeps getting reinvented (because it's provocative) but which never gains much traction. A savvy reader could pick up that the lack of any real agreement among the notion's proponents over the years suggests that there's not really anything to it, but the less sophisticated reader runs the risk of not being able to put the pieces together.

And then we come to the frankly debunking articles, like moon landing conspiracy theories (T-H-L), which contains a long point-by-point rebuttal of the "evidence" that the moon landings were faked. Ming must insist that this is absolutely appropriate. The solfeggio frequencies example above is another instance: someone who knows about medieval music and the history of musical technology knows that every historical claim made by the notion's inventor is a lie. Not a misunderstanding, but a bald-faced lie. If the subject is to be addressed at all, he only legitimate approach to it is beginning-to-end debunking. Nobody who isn't learned in the field should be forced to pick through the conflicting claims; they should be told up front that it is nonsense first published in 1998 and absolutely false from the get-go.

[thekohser]

Jimbo's "sum of all human knowledge" is likewise an attempt to assert a monopoly over "truth," despite the protestations to the contrary and the prattle about NPOV.

You can accuse Jimbo of many things. However, I doubt that these include a deliberate attempt to assert a monopoly over "truth".

You're right. It's probably more of an accidental attempt.

[The Devil's Advocate]

The perennial issue, though, is that the effect is to make the po-mo-but-inaccurate claim that there isn't any particular truth. Or more typically, that everyone gets to have their own truth. There are places where that kind of ambiguity is appropriate: if you look at the biblical text crit articles, for instance, there's a great deal of laying out of alternate viewpoints because there's no one viewpoint that has managed to emerge triumphant. On the other hand there's a perennial (and occaisionally acute) struggle at Christ myth theory (T-H-L) because it's a minority position that keeps getting reinvented (because it's provocative) but which never gains much traction. A savvy reader could pick up that the lack of any real agreement among the notion's proponents over the years suggests that there's not really anything to it, but the less sophisticated reader runs the risk of not being able to put the pieces together.

And then we come to the frankly debunking articles, like moon landing conspiracy theories (T-H-L), which contains a long point-by-point rebuttal of the "evidence" that the moon landings were faked. Ming must insist that this is absolutely appropriate. The solfeggio frequencies example above is another instance: someone who knows about medieval music and the history of musical technology knows that every historical claim made by the notion's inventor is a lie. Not a misunderstanding, but a bald-faced lie. If the subject is to be addressed at all, he only legitimate approach to it is beginning-to-end debunking. Nobody who isn't learned in the field should be forced to pick through the conflicting claims; they should be told up front that it is nonsense first published in 1998 and absolutely false from the get-go.

The problem with "beginning-to-end debunking" is that it is not going to be reserved just to things that are demonstrably false, but anything that is not accepted within the mainstream. At the same time this leads to promotion of various pro-establishment logical fallacies, which discourage any critical questioning of authority figures. It will also not be limited to simply addressing the allegations on a factual basis, but will inevitably include attempts to disparage or generalize the views and their adherents. Discussing the subject in a serious and objective context can actually do more to compel people to believe the mainstream position than an obvious hit piece.

[Hersch]

It will also not be limited to simply addressing the allegations on a factual basis, but will inevitably include attempts to disparage or generalize the views and their adherents. Discussing the subject in a serious and objective context can actually do more to compel people to believe the mainstream position than an obvious hit piece.

Here's a recent case in point. Since the Frankfurt School included Jews as members, any critique of the FS obviously has a hidden subtext.

[Vigilant]

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

Can you explain what you mean here?

[Hersch]

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

Can you explain what you mean here?

Without writing a book? Well, in Darwin's case, he sort of imposed his preferred social model upon the natural world, and instead of looking at evolution holistically, he depicts it as the outcome of competition between groups viewed in isolation ("survival of the fittest", as opposed to an entire ecosystem that is developing in a purposeful, non-arbitrary way.) Newton simply took Kepler's laws an re-formulated them as a "black box" with no causality, and like Darwin, views only isolated components of larger systems, giving rise to paradoxes like the three-body problem.

[Vigilant]

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

Can you explain what you mean here?

Without writing a book? Well, in Darwin's case, he sort of imposed his preferred social model upon the natural world, and instead of looking at evolution holistically, he depicts it as the outcome of competition between groups viewed in isolation ("survival of the fittest", as opposed to an entire ecosystem that is developing in a purposeful, non-arbitrary way.) Newton simply took Kepler's laws an re-formulated them as a "black box" with no causality, and like Darwin, views only isolated components of larger systems, giving rise to paradoxes like the three-body problem.

I find your view a bit harsh(Hersch(HA!)).

These men were in the very early stages of trying to define the underpinnings of their disciplines.
Fundamental science doesn't seem to lend itself to initial holistic expressions.

[Kiefer.Wolfowitz]

Unless you're implying that Diderot was using the Encyclopédie to propagandize anti-monarchism, freethinking and tolerance for others, that doesn't sound like a project dedicated to "thought control".

I understand the question you are raising, and I don't think I can really answer it properly without plunging headlong into tldr-land.

I'll try to merely hint at an answer with two brief points: first of all, the fact that these Enlightenment figures opposed absolutism does not transform them into the Good Guys. Sometimes there are simply two competing sets of Bad Guys....

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

Are you an ignoramus, or just posing?

[Ming]

The problem with "beginning-to-end debunking" is that it is not going to be reserved just to things that are demonstrably false, but anything that is not accepted within the mainstream.

Do you have an example of that? Ming is mostly aware of cases of "obviously wrong", though there are a few enforcers out there like Gregbard (T-C-L) who have an establishment-like grip on heir own viewpoints. But those people get into fights with the FT/N crowd.

[Kiefer.Wolfowitz]

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

Can you explain what you mean here?

Without writing a book? Well, in Darwin's case, he sort of imposed his preferred social model upon the natural world, and instead of looking at evolution holistically, he depicts it as the outcome of competition between groups viewed in isolation ("survival of the fittest", as opposed to an entire ecosystem that is developing in a purposeful, non-arbitrary way.) Newton simply took Kepler's laws an re-formulated them as a "black box" with no causality, and like Darwin, views only isolated components of larger systems, giving rise to paradoxes like the three-body problem.

Why don't you read a calculus and mechanics book, so that you can write a non-idiotic paragraph, before considering writing a book? The three-body problem is not a paradox.

You might look at ''Nature: Genetics'' to see reports on experiments of the reproductive advantage of particular mutations being demonstrated through experiments.

[Hersch]

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

Can you explain what you mean here?

Without writing a book? Well, in Darwin's case, he sort of imposed his preferred social model upon the natural world, and instead of looking at evolution holistically, he depicts it as the outcome of competition between groups viewed in isolation ("survival of the fittest", as opposed to an entire ecosystem that is developing in a purposeful, non-arbitrary way.) Newton simply took Kepler's laws an re-formulated them as a "black box" with no causality, and like Darwin, views only isolated components of larger systems, giving rise to paradoxes like the three-body problem.

I find your view a bit harsh(Hersch(HA!)).

These men were in the very early stages of trying to define the underpinnings of their disciplines.
Fundamental science doesn't seem to lend itself to initial holistic expressions.

Not for Enlightenment-style science, where Wikipedia-style compartmentalism is all the rage. But Kepler's work, which was pinched by Newton, was quite holistic. Renaissance science in general, typified by Da Vinci, was holistic. These fellows looked at the geometry of the universe, and didn't attempt to reduce it to a one-billiard-ball-hits-another sort of model.

[Ming]

Not for Enlightenment-style science, where Wikipedia-style compartmentalism is all the rage. But Kepler's work, which was pinched by Newton, was quite holistic. Renaissance science in general, typified by Da Vinci, was holistic. These fellows looked at the geometry of the universe, and didn't attempt to reduce it to a one-billiard-ball-hits-another sort of model.

This is just proof that "holistic" doesn't mean anything. Newtonian mechanics is, from one crucial angle, one of the most important "holistic" advances in human understanding, because it unified all forms of motion, and gravitation to boot, into a single and simple set of rules. Of course to use those rules you need a better mathematical language than the ancients, so Newton invented calculus.

Ming can't figure out how this is a bad thing. This reductionism is what allows us to model the solar system so that, for instance, we can chuck our satellites around pretty much at will, and expect them to routinely get where they are going.

[Hersch]

Leibniz invented calculus.

[Midsize Jake]

Leibniz invented calculus.

They both did, and somewhat independently of each other, but Newton was more of a physicist and Leibniz was more of a mathematician. Also, both of them were way behind on child support at the time.

[rhindle]

What was the Enlightenment? It was a very sophisticated attack on the Renaissance. The creativity, the spirit of optimism and the embrace of change that came in with the Renaissance were replaced with the bitter cynicism of Voltaire, the mechanistic, reductionist science of Newton and Darwin, and the attempt to freeze and codify human knowledge with encyclopedias -- lest someone add something new to it. They attacked the bad in religion, but also the good. The Enlightenment was not a big win for humanity.

Can you explain what you mean here?

Without writing a book? Well, in Darwin's case, he sort of imposed his preferred social model upon the natural world, and instead of looking at evolution holistically, he depicts it as the outcome of competition between groups viewed in isolation ("survival of the fittest", as opposed to an entire ecosystem that is developing in a purposeful, non-arbitrary way.) Newton simply took Kepler's laws an re-formulated them as a "black box" with no causality, and like Darwin, views only isolated components of larger systems, giving rise to paradoxes like the three-body problem.

I find your view a bit harsh(Hersch(HA!)).

These men were in the very early stages of trying to define the underpinnings of their disciplines.
Fundamental science doesn't seem to lend itself to initial holistic expressions.

Not for Enlightenment-style science, where Wikipedia-style compartmentalism is all the rage. But Kepler's work, which was pinched by Newton, was quite holistic. Renaissance science in general, typified by Da Vinci, was holistic. These fellows looked at the geometry of the universe, and didn't attempt to reduce it to a one-billiard-ball-hits-another sort of model.

Newton just generalized Kepler's equations to fit the rest of the universe. Kepler's laws worked with our solar system but would not work with other systems. That's where Newton's calculus came to play and how we're able to determine the orbits of newly discovered exoplanets.

[Hersch]

It is a characteristic of Enlightenment-style science, up to the present day, that these guys come up with a non-causal, mechanistic "black box" sort of gimmick that can be useful to engineers but represents no progress for actual science -- and then they turn around and dive headlong into looney-tune mysticism when asked for causal explanations. See Isaac Newton's occult studies (T-H-L).

[Vigilant]

It is a characteristic of Enlightenment-style science, up to the present day, that these guys come up with a non-causal, mechanistic "black box" sort of gimmick that can be useful to engineers but represents no progress for actual science -- and then they turn around and dive headlong into looney-tune mysticism when asked for causal explanations. See Isaac Newton's occult studies (T-H-L).

So, let me get this straight.
You used Newton and Darwin as you examples and it is your contention that neither man made progress for actual science?

Can you change the headgear on your icon to tinfoil?

[Poetlister]

Newton simply took Kepler's laws an re-formulated them as a "black box" with no causality

Newton showed that Kepler's laws were true if and only if the planets experienced a force that obeyed an inverse square law. How is that a black box? What causality did Kepler demonstrate that Newton tried to remove?

[Peter Damian]

a non-causal, mechanistic "black box"

What is 'not-causal mechanistic'?

[eppur si muove]

Because no one else seems interested, I've done a summary of the Shakespeare squabble.

basis

For centuries since his death, academics have argued over the identity, and even the very existence, of William Shakespeare. Some claim that Shakespeare's works were actually ghost-written by Edward De Vere. Some point to Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon. Some Arabs believe that his real name was "Sheikh Zubair" and that he was an expatriate Arab. A few Russian academics have claimed he was Russian, Turks have tried to claim him as Turkish, Nazis tried to claim he was an "Aryan", and so forth. In this postmodern world, not many are willing to say that he was the "Bard of Stratford".

The official Wikipedia article is presently almost 148k bytes and incoherent, with 250 references (to the same few books), thanks to endless editwarring since it was started in February 2002, ironically by an editor called "Unknown". As in the "real world", the Wiki-world was full of spluttering over these claims. Similar fights involved any and all related articles, even Hamnet Shakespeare. Various administrators, Giano and his friend Bishonen, and a motley crew of English history buffs were dragged into the orbit of the black hole.
[edit] history

A mediation was attempted in October 2006. It failed, of course.

A 2007 proposal to promote the main article to "Featured Article" status failed, after massive amounts of argumentation. Starting in June, a "peer review" discussion of Shakespeare began to attract fighting.[1] At the same time, someone bizarrely tried to delete the list of Shakespeare's works. Related articles attracted AFDs.[2][3][4] There are too many mentions of this dispute on various noticeboards to list here.

An attempt to start an RFC in October 2010 was disappeared. A mediation in January failed, and a mediation in September went nowhere, both as usual with Wikipedia mediations. More madness:[5][6]

In early 2011, it was finally dragged to arbitration. Editor and De Vere fan NinaGreen was banned for one year, fellow De Vere fan "Smatprt" was topic-banned for one year and later banned permanently. Others were issued short blocks or topic restrictions. As soon as their bans expired, they went back to arguing. (Smatprt already had his own special section on AN/I.)

A March 2011 proposal to give the main article Featured Article status attracted massive amounts of argumentation. This time, it was promoted.

Another mediation, in May 2012, also went nowhere.

As of 2013, Wikiproject Shakespeare is watching 1,071 articles, mostly stubs or very short ones, and appears to be a nearly-dead project in any case. One of its founders in 2007: Steven Walling. The squabble over authorship continues, anyway.

A problem with the above is that the Oxfordians, the Baconians, the Marlovians etc are based outside academia. (Smatprt, for example is Stephen Moorer, an actor-director who was AT the Pacific Repertory Company at the time he created his id.) The critics of the authorship claims are based within academia. Just look at the sources cited and see who have senior university positions and who don't. So the argument isn't between academics and other academics but between amateurs and people who well established research credentials.

[Peter Damian]

Exactly what is indecent or inaccurate about such treatment?

Consider Britannica's take on the Shakespeare authorship question (T-H-L), which is written more as a polemical simplification of the debate rather than an objective overview of the facts. There are more examples, but I think you may understand what I am saying. Wikipedia, at least, allows for more open consideration of the alternative view, even if it has a hostile behind-the-scenes environment and still produces a somewhat biased result. It inhibits a broader understanding of such subjects and limits further inquiry into broader implications of the debate to promote or tolerate the kind of cultural hostility towards dissenting views that exists in these sorts of discussions.

Yes I quite like the Wikipedia articles on such subjects, e.g. the faked Apollo landing theory article, which I think is longer than the one of the actual moon-landings. Of course a convention reference work would not deal with such theories. (I think 'ming' says the same thing above). If Wikipedia had been around in the 16th century, who knows what it would have been like?

[iii]

Hersch has demonstrated in the past that he is an adherent to a particularly anti-contemporary-science school of thought. This is not too far removed from LaRouche idealism that he explained to me in some detail at the other boards before the great migration. His villains are for the most part (and perhaps not coincidentally) British scientists and his rejection of scientific results extends from astronomy to evolutionary biology to climate science. You can find out more about his peculiar take by going down this rabbit hole.

[Hersch]

Can you change the headgear on your icon to tinfoil?

I suppose I really ought to, since I can't seem to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm for those real smart, non-kooky scientists.

[Vigilant]

Can you change the headgear on your icon to tinfoil?

I suppose I really ought to, since I can't seem to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm for those real smart, non-kooky scientists.

Are you saying that someone's kookiness invalidates their other "actual progress of science" type contributions?
Does this apply more widely?
Does being a kook invalidate all of your contributions?
Does one person being a bit kooky invalidate all of science?

If that's so, then what are your thoughts on Lyndon LaRouche?
Cause he has some pretty kooky thoughts, my man.

[The Devil's Advocate]

Do you have an example of that? Ming is mostly aware of cases of "obviously wrong", though there are a few enforcers out there like Gregbard (T-C-L) who have an establishment-like grip on heir own viewpoints. But those people get into fights with the FT/N crowd.

Look, I am not gonna play this game where you single out a specific comment, demand an example, and then nitpick the example. If you want an example of how debunkers taking over an article can make it into a giant mess of obscene propaganda you need look no further than Politicization of science (T-H-L).

[Ming]

It is a characteristic of Enlightenment-style science, up to the present day, that these guys come up with a non-causal, mechanistic "black box" sort of gimmick that can be useful to engineers but represents no progress for actual science -- and then they turn around and dive headlong into looney-tune mysticism when asked for causal explanations. See Isaac Newton's occult studies (T-H-L).

Um, yeah. Newton was a piece of work (look up "Trinity mathmo" sometime) but when the key points of that article are cited from a book which many reviewers complain relies on "proof by vigorous assertion", I for one can't get too worked up over his alchemical dalliances.

[Hersch]

Can you change the headgear on your icon to tinfoil?

I suppose I really ought to, since I can't seem to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm for those real smart, non-kooky scientists.

Are you saying that someone's kookiness invalidates their other "actual progress of science" type contributions?
Does this apply more widely?
Does being a kook invalidate all of your contributions?
Does one person being a bit kooky invalidate all of science?

If that's so, then what are your thoughts on Lyndon LaRouche?
Cause he has some pretty kooky thoughts, my man.

I forgot the irony icon. I was simply responding to your call for me to wear tinfoil headgear.

[IRWolfie-]

Do you have an example of that? Ming is mostly aware of cases of "obviously wrong", though there are a few enforcers out there like Gregbard (T-C-L) who have an establishment-like grip on heir own viewpoints. But those people get into fights with the FT/N crowd.

Look, I am not gonna play this game where you single out a specific comment, demand an example, and then nitpick the example. If you want an example of how debunkers taking over an article can make it into a giant mess of obscene propaganda you need look no further than Politicization of science (T-H-L).

From a brief skim, I fail to see the issue with the article you link to.

[Volunteer Marek]

Can you change the headgear on your icon to tinfoil?

I suppose I really ought to, since I can't seem to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm for those real smart, non-kooky scientists.

Are you saying that someone's kookiness invalidates their other "actual progress of science" type contributions?
Does this apply more widely?
Does being a kook invalidate all of your contributions?
Does one person being a bit kooky invalidate all of science?

If that's so, then what are your thoughts on Lyndon LaRouche?
Cause he has some pretty kooky thoughts, my man.

It's not Hersch's kooky theories that bother me that much it's that he just gets basic facts wrong (and when you point it out to him he alludes to some conspiracies in regard to how the data was recorded or rejects the evidence altogether because that's "empiricism", i.e. "British invented evil", or something). Some recent examples are the notion that Darwin "imposed his social views on the natural world" (no, that was Herbert Spence who was the one who said "survival of the fittest" ) that Adam Smith was the one who invented the notion that the value of something is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it (no, that was the Marginalists who came later, Smith was a Classical economist who more or less thought value = labor input) or that we're currently experiencing unprecedented levels of inflation (or are just about to). There's more, but basically every time you get into these discussions with him that's what it always comes down to.

[DanMurphy]

Can you change the headgear on your icon to tinfoil?

I suppose I really ought to, since I can't seem to muster up the right amount of enthusiasm for those real smart, non-kooky scientists.

Are you saying that someone's kookiness invalidates their other "actual progress of science" type contributions?
Does this apply more widely?-
Does being a kook invalidate all of your contributions?
Does one person being a bit kooky invalidate all of science?

If that's so, then what are your thoughts on Lyndon LaRouche?
Cause he has some pretty kooky thoughts, my man.

It's not Hersch's kooky theories that bother me that much it's that he just gets basic facts wrong (and when you point it out to him he alludes to some conspiracies in regard to how the data was recorded or rejects the evidence altogether because that's "empiricism", i.e. "British invented evil", or something). Some recent examples are the notion that Darwin "imposed his social views on the natural world" (no, that was Herbert Spence who was the one who said "survival of the fittest" ) that Adam Smith was the one who invented the notion that the value of something is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it (no, that was the Marginalists who came later, Smith was a Classical economist who more or less thought value = labor input) or that we're currently experiencing unprecedented levels of inflation (or are just about to). There's more, but basically every time you get into these discussions with him that's what it always comes down to.

On Darwin, he was deeply troubled by the spiritual implications of what he was finding, and had no interest in implying "Darwinism" to the social life of humans.

He was no Wallace of course, but still deserving of admiration. Wallace had a much better feel for what we now call ecology, and Darwin did indeed get a great many things wrong -- as almost all early theorists do in any discipline. The work he helped start (with others) has since been built on create a more accurate picture and understanding of speciation and the role of competition in the evolution of plants, animals, and whole ecosystems.