Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/January 2007/trishm

Case Filed On: 09:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedian filing request:

• trishm (talk · contribs)

Other Wikipedians this pertains to:

Wikipedia pages this pertains to:

• Intelligent_design (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Questions:

Have you read the AMA FAQ?

• Answer:Yes

How would you describe the nature of this dispute? (policy violation, content dispute, personal attack, other)

• Answer: Policy conflict. I, along with many editors on the page,am finding it difficult to balance the three applicable policies and guidelines: NPOV, Reliability of sources and Fringe Theories.

• NPOV, in brief, says to present the arguments in such a way as the proponents would be comfortable, while also not misleading the reader in any way.
• Reliability of sources says be careful with claims that are not true, and defines what would be considered a fringe theory, and
• fringe theories says "Quotes that are controversial or potentially misleading need to be properly contextualized to avoid unintentional endorsement.". ID as the Discovery Institute defines it fits that definition because of the incorrect scientific claims, i.e. that ID is a scientific theory (better than natural selection), not because of the idea of a supernatural creator, which is a perfectly reasonable religious/philosophical proposition.

The basic problem is that in order to explain the position of Intelligent Design as put forth by the Discovery Institute, in order to not give unintentional endorsement, it is also necessary to explain why the assertions are not true, so that the reader is mislead. The prime example of this is the assertion that ID is a science, where there is no reasonable definition under which that is true.

The conflict is most apparent in trying to craft the leading paragraph, which is almost impossible to keep NPOV, and simultaneously not say anything incorrect, or endorse something that isn't true by definition.

What methods of Dispute Resolution have you tried so far? If you can, please provide wikilinks so that the Advocate looking over this case can see what you have done.

• Answer:

There have been many, many discussions, many of them in the archives, by extremely able editors. This is not a trivial dispute by any means.

An excellent example of editors discussing these issues for the nth time is: archive 34, section 19.[1] There is a lot of discussion and dispute, but also a commendable amount of good will, assumption of good faith, diplomacy and so forth. I believe the resolution needs to occur at the policy level.

What do you expect to get from Advocacy?

• Answer:Some guidance on how to proceed to resolve or prioritize the differing aspects policies.

Summary:

I would now like to withdraw my request. I have explained my concerns on the ID pages as well as I can, and have to some degree been heard. I feel that continuing with the RFA may not help a page already in turmoil.

I am requesting guidance on how to apply policy and guidelines relating to NPOV, undue weight and fringe theories relating to incorrect assertions in the heated Intelligent Design. The fundamental example is the assertion "ID is a science". This is not true according to all criteria in the policies, and is considered a fringe view in religous and scientific fields, and has been found false in the US courts. This is not under dispute. However, despite this, there is a view among editors (not all) that the assertion that "ID is not a science" is a POV statement, on the grounds that the proponents of ID would not feel comfortable with this statement. "ID is not science" cannot be both a neutral fact and POV at the same time, and so the discussions on this and other topics seem to be incapable of resolution.

Followup:

When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:

Did you find the Advocacy process useful?

• Answer:

Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?

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On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?

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On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?

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If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?

• Answer:

If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?

• Answer:

AMA Information

Case Status: closed

Advocate Status:

• None assigned.