Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/John Hagelin/1

John Hagelin

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: delist' I have read through this artcile several times over the last few days and my general impression is that it does not meet GA standards. Many of the sources cited appear to not be very high quailty, e.g. US Peace Government, John Hagelin org, Improbable Research. There appears to be an over-reliance on the inclusion of much Fringe Theory information. I note that editing of the article continues with a little slow motion edit warring going on. The GA reviewer noted many issues with reference formatting, but virtually no comment on article content. My conclusion is that the article should be de-listed. When it fully meets the good article criteria it may be re-nominated at WP:GAN. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Here is the GA version of the article: [1].

This article passed a good article review despite a number of clear neutrality issues. These raise concerns that the review was inadequate. The article uses fringe sources to make the reception of his fringe theories look positive in this section, and subtly misrepresents sources like Nature (journal)

This sentence: "Anderson says Hagelin's investigations into how the extension of grand unified theories of physics to human consciousness could explain the way Transcendental Meditation is said to influence world events "disturbs many researchers" and "infuriates his former collaborators." is a misrepresentation of the source [2]. What the scientists were infuriated by was his lectures "lectures on SU(5) and other unified field theories to both scientific and nonscientific audiences, mixed in with a lengthy discussion of TM." i.e mixing of fringe with real work. The Nature source is cherry picked and used out of context to provide a more positive portrayal in stark comparison to the actual source. The section also includes a fringe rebuttal to a mainstream perspective with an article from a fringe/pseudoscientific journal: Journal of Scientific Exploration. The sentence about the pro-fringe movies is a clear SYNTH: "Hagelin was a featured scientist in the movies, What the Bleep Do We Know!?[74], What the Bleep? Down the Rabbit Hole (2006)[75] and The Secret[76], which renewed interest in the quantum mind paradigm.[77]" is a cobbled together synthesis. The "which renewed interest in the quantum mind paradigm" part is sourced to [3], which does not mention "the secret". It's a remarkably close paragraph of the title, but again takes a seemingly positive statement from a rather negative article (which doesn't mention John hagelin).

The subsection [4] acts as though "Noetic Field Theory", a fringe theory (google it) is academic. The book "Complex solutions to the Einstein, Maxwell, Schrödinger and Dirac equation", by Elizabeth Rauscher, who believes in ghosts, faith healing telepathy and the paranormal and Richard Amoroso of the "Noetic Advanced Studies Institute", which appears to be a rather normal book except for a very weird chapter at the end with tonnes fringe claims about conciousness etc (have a flick through on google books) is treated as an academic source. The same section then uses the fringe publication Neuroquantology, and represents it as academic. The section also has a paragraph simply listing places he was cited; it constructs a paragraph from original research. Again, to give the appearance of scienciness to a fringe theory.

The article also used primary sources to make claims that they aren't reliable for here: [5], including claims about the existing of paranormal effects (an extraordinary claim about a fringe subject sourced to a non-independent source, contrary to WP:EXTRAORDINARY and Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Independent sources.

The article puts his work as a physicist alongside his fringe work, putting them both under "Scientist and academic" in his professional career.

The article also covers his "Invincible America" uncritically, and uses press releases, tongue-in-cheek and light-hearted articles as RS.

At least one of the editors has a COI: [6], which was not disclosed during the review. In summary, I think the article needs an actually thorough review before being called a good article. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have notified the GA editors: Keithbob, TimidGuy and Little Olive (olive), and the latest GA reviewer: Tomcat7, formerly GreatOrangePumpkin. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

I'll reiterate that this article was written by multiple editors over a long period of time including Olive, Will Beback, Fladrif, Timid Guy, and others. IRWolfie recently brought this article to a NB [7]. I welcome a uninvolved editor review of the article and I am happy to help implement changes to improve the article.(olive (talk) 22:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Add Note: This article itself is not about a fringe topic, its a BLP, that contains content about a topic that is fringe to mainstream science. The subject of the article, John Hagelin, attempted to look at more mainstream physics and a fringe idea together, and the sources discuss this significant, albeit unusual aspect of his career. We cannot insert our own opinion on what he did or use our opinion of what he did as a reason to remove RS content. Please note that this article falls under TM arbitration discretionary sanctions. (olive (talk) 17:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

This article is totally unsuitable for Good Article status. It is deceptive and misleading as it attempts to meld the fringe ideas of TM into mainstream physics, thereby giving the former a spurious respectability. I have no objection to articles on fringe science or even GAs on fringe science but this BLP is seriously lacking. In fact, it is so full of fringe advocacy that to even be retained as a standard BLP it should be pruned by 75%. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Can you give an example of the article attempting to meld a fringe idea into mainstream science? Thanks. TimidGuy (talk) 09:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The subject's work in mainstream science (which is widely recognized as outstanding as judged by his citation record) is treated at the same levels as his TM activities (which are rejected by all but a handful). The article is a skillfully written piece of propaganda. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:00, 8 April 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Read my initial review again. Easy example: Pseudoscientific nonsense was put under academic literature. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:25, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Read WP:FRINGE (guess what; adding fringe claims is also covered by discretionary sanctions), if you try and link the material together in the way you have, you are violating the core policy NPOV. We don't muddle pseudoscience/fringe science and the mainstream altogether. if an individual did that in his own work, then we note that, but we don't try and imply that pseudoscience/fringe science is mainstream. That violates NPOV at the most fundamental level. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

IRWolfie. You can stop trying to implicate single editors in some kind of wrongdoing. Multiple editors created this article including Will Beback. Second, John Hagelin did indeed connect his fringe to mainstream research with more mainstream physics, although, note that string theory also has its detractors. The article cites this research from the sources. It is not up to any editor on this page to offer opinions on this research, then expect the article to read per their opinion. Finally, IRWolfie you have not made a single comment on the article talk page yet you have come here and are using this forum to attack editors. I said before and I'll say it again. I, as one editor, am open to discussion and changes to make this article stronger. I am not interested in being attacked for some perceived wrong doing.(olive (talk) 02:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

I wasn't implying you personally made all the edits, I haven't even looked at who made what edits. You have been notified about this GAR only because you participated in it becoming a GAR. I did not notify anyone who did not participate. Your comparison of Hagelin's fringe work to string theory is not a valid comparison, string theory isn't anything like Hagelin's fringe work. What I was pointing out, (above) is that your interpretation of policy was not correct. The article is not about reflecting my opinion, it's about clearly separating fringe material from mainstream material, and not giving undue promoting a fringe theory by making it look more sciency or more accepted than it is ; that's policy. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:07, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And note: I have never stated my opinion of this controversial research, nor will I, and my opinion one way or the other has nothing to do with the content or the sources so, its best not to assume anything.(olive (talk) 02:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Which controversial research are you referring to? IRWolfie- (talk) 10:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.