User talk:JWSorensen22

Yes. We are biased.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once wrote:

"Wikipedia’s policies ... are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t.[23] [24] [25] [26]"

So yes, we are biased.

We are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience.
We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathy.
We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
We are biased towards solar energy, and biased against esoteric energy.
We are biased towards actual conspiracies and biased against conspiracy theories.
We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
We are biased towards vaccination, and biased against vaccine hesitancy.
We are biased towards magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against magnetic therapy.
We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
We are biased towards laundry detergent, and biased against laundry balls.
We are biased towards augmentative and alternative communication, and biased against facilitated communication.
We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards mercury in saturated calomel electrodes, and biased against mercury in quack medicines.
We are biased towards blood transfusions, and biased against blood letting.
We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
We are biased towards evolution, and biased against young earth creationism.
We are biased towards holocaust studies, and biased against holocaust denial.
We are biased towards an (approximately) spherical earth, and biased against a flat earth.
We are biased towards the sociology of race, and biased against scientific racism.
We are biased towards the scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against global warming conspiracy theories.
We are biased towards the existence of Jesus and biased against the existence of Santa Claus.
We are biased towards geology, and biased against flood geology.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
We are biased towards Mendelism, and biased against Lysenkoism.

And we are not going to change. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:01, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

References

@Tgeorgescu: I would have liked to see, "We are biased towards the truth, and biased against that which is not true." JWSorensen22 (talk) 01:18, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Truth is whatever any random guy on the street thinks it's true—Wikipedia has nothing to do with such childish notion of truth. For Wikipedia it is true what the Ivy League says it's true. You might read more about that at WP:ABIAS. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:39, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure what is childish about wanting true and accurate information. JWSorensen22 (talk) 01:46, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

It's because everybody and their dog pretends to have The Truth™. What is the truth? is a question Jesus never answered. You may begin your understanding of what counts for scientific truth at epistemology. Beware that hard-core, mainstream academic epistemology is not for people who desire quick fixes. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:45, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Though Jesus was not specifically asked the question, "What is the truth?", in John 14:6, He did provide an answer when He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." JWSorensen22 (talk) 03:44, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Generally, at Wikipedia we don't discuss about true or false, we discuss the reliability of sources. Wikipedia is not a research institute, it is not an university, so establishing truth claims is outsourced to people broadly recognized as experts in their field, like scientists, scholars, and sometimes journalists. Wikipedians are simply put people who have the WP:COMPETENCE of citing and weighing sources written by real experts. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:16, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Can a source be reliable if it is not true and accurate? Also, if I am not considered an "expert", must I depend on someone else to tell me what is true and accurate? JWSorensen22 (talk) 04:22, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Work in modern societies is subject to specialization and delegation. This also applies for intellectual work, like science, scholarship, and journalism. So, it is you who have a choice not to trust the people broadly recognized as experts, Wikipedia does not have that choice.

"You seem to be assuming reliable sources are always correct" That may seem to you, but I am not. If a reliable source turns out to be incorrect in spite of all evidence agianst that, and Wikipedia has quoted that source, then Wikipedia will be wrong.

We have to accept that risk. The alternative is to find another system that has a lower risk of articles being wrong. Can you suggest one? I don't think so. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:05, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia has chosen for the academic mainstream, full speed ahead, and there is no turning back for Wikipedia.

We have a name for allowing every editor to insert into our articles whatever they think it's true: that's called anarchy. Wikipedia is WP:NOTANARCHY. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:45, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

If an editor can assume good faith and if an editor has the ability to identify reliable sources (WP:COMPETENCE), why should the editor have to post ideas the consensus believe, just because they are the consensus? JWSorensen22 (talk) 02:26, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:CONSENSUS is based upon WP:RULES and WP:RS. Wikipedic consensus serves rendering the external consensus, like scientific consensus or scholarly consensus. See e.g. WP:UNDUE, WP:PSCI, WP:FALSEBALANCE, which are policy, while WP:FRINGE is a guideline. I.e. the consensus of Wikipedia editors shouldn't be arbitrary, but based upon the consensus or majority view in that academic discipline, provided a consensus or majority view does exist in that research field about the specific subject being discussed. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:34, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Please know, I was not trying to offend your intelligence on the Talk:Abomination of desolation page. That is not my intention. However, just because an idea is not considered mainstream history does not mean it is not true.

Again, Wikipedia does not care about what you claim it's true: we're not interested in your opinions (or mine, for that matter). It is only concerned with mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP. So, as long as you keep talking about The Truth™, you cannot successfully participate in editing Wikipedia. Drop all talking about what's true according to you or your pet theologian if you want to edit Wikipedia. Wikipedia is based on knowledge (episteme) not opinion (doxa). See https://sites.dwrl.utexas.edu/visualrhetoric/2016/02/18/the-spectrum-of-doxa-and-episteme/

To sum up: Wikipedia Community has absolutely no means by which to test if your claim is true or false, but it knows with absolute certainty that your claim is pseudoscholarship.

E.g. we don't know if red yeast cures vitiligo, since we have no WP:MEDRS-quality sources about that. But we dismiss such claim out of hand, because medical claims need WP:MEDRS. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

@Proveallthings: I did overlook Stephen Miller's reasoning, and I did it intentionally. And it's because me and you are attempting to do two different things right now. You're attempting to use evidence to find what is true. I'm attempting to survey the literature to find out what most scholars say about this particular question. That's because Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of truth, but a service for summarizing what the scholarly community says.

If we were here to discover what is true together on the Wikipedia talk pages, then you would be doing what is right (marshalling the linguistic arguments), and I would be doing something wrong (just quoting a bunch of authorities and pointing out that "your side" here consists only of people with a particular theological set of commitments). So let me be clear. I'm not saying you're wrong about "father". You, and Kenneth Kitchen, might be right. I'm just saying that, in terms of the way Wikipedia weighs sources, Kenneth Kitchen's opinion is out on the fringes in the scholarly world. Alephb (talk) 21:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

As they said in Star Wars, Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Meaning Wikipedia has no access to the Absolute Truth.

Wikipedia does not proclaim the Truth that Steiner (or any other guru) was in error, but it simply has to render the fact that Steiner's ideas are eccentric and bizarre in respect to mainstream views (e.g. what commonly passes for science and scholarship in the contemporary academia). Wikipedia simply has to render the lack of broad acceptance for Steiner's views. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:05, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

"Steiner is right" is a transcendental truth, and Wikipedia has no access to transcendental truths. What it has access to is learned opinion, such as science, scholarship and reliable press. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Quoting myself. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:04, 5 November 2021 (UTC)