Template talk:Pseudoscience

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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.

Polygraph test

All Psychological testing has a limited reliability. That one is not an exception. The science may be weak, but hardly a pseudoscience. My very best wishes (talk) 20:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the Polygraph article, which states: "In 1991, two thirds of the scientific community who have the requisite background to evaluate polygraph procedures considered polygraphy to be pseudoscience." with this statement being reliably sourced. Two Thirds is an overwhelming majority, it doesn't need to be everyone much in the same way we don't need 100% of everyone to accept that Climate Change is real and we don't remove Flat Earth theory because some people still believe in it. If the vast majority of mainstream experts in a field agree something is pseudoscience then it is. OrgoneBox (talk) 15:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Our page uses this ref to support the statement. The ref is an analysis of the "control question test (CQT)", only one type of polygraph. Based on the abstract, I doubt they conducted a sociological study to come up with the 2/3 number. In general, the technique is described as weak science/unreliable, claims of "pseudoscience" are not common [1]. My very best wishes (talk)

Precognition, parapsychology and dowsing

The articles on precognition, parapsychology and dowsing, presumably among others, all transclude this template but are not themselves listed in it. This breaches WP:BIDIRECTIONAL. Is this acceptable, or should either the articles or the template be changed accordingly? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the articles' subjects are not sufficiently core to the topic in question so as to be listed in the navbox, I don't think the inclusion of the navbox is appropriate. After all, we wouldn't include the navbox on all of the tens of thousands of articles in the Category:Pseudoscience category tree. (With a depth of just 4, PetScan finds 34,414 articles in the category tree. With a depth of 6, that increases to 85,596.) In the case of the first two articles you mentioned, the inclusion of {{Parapsychology}} is more than sufficient given the current state of the templates.

That being said, I am agnostic on the question of whether any or all of these articles should be added to the navbox. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 19:51, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Strauss-Howe generational theory

To put this on the same level as astrology, phrenology and 2012 Maya prophecies seems a little bit mean.

From the article: "Academic response to the theory has been mixed—some applauding Strauss and Howe for their "bold and imaginative thesis" and others criticizing the theory as being overly-deterministic, unfalsifiable, and unsupported by rigorous evidence"

You won't get any "mixed response" from academics to astrology, etc. Captain Genet (talk) 07:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 10 August 2021

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Chiropractic is not "pseudoscience," any more or less than medicine. I state this as a career neuroscientist in the field. Indeed, I am one of the most qualified people alive to make this statement. The word "pseudoscience" needs to be removed. Geoffreybove (talk) 09:59, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Wikipedia does not accept original research, and Chiropractic seems to establish it as pseudoscience with reliable sources. This should probably be handled on Talk:Chiropractic first. (pinging Geoffreybove) — Lauritz Thomsen (talk) 10:28, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]