CZ Talk:Neutrality Policy/Archive 1

This page was borrowed from a December 2001 policy page on Wikipedia. It needs (or needed) to be edited, but it is serviceable for our present needs.

Unibased writing and thinking is quite hard in a competitive, business driven culture. We are taught to present our beliefs in as convincing a manner as we can. So I apreciate these helpful hints:

• unbiased writing means presenting controversial views without asserting them.

--Janos Abel

Wikipedia has a similar policy on pseudoscience, but with stronger language than us. Now their neutrality policy is often embattled in so-called "arbitration" cases, should we do something to prevent that? However, in another hand, our policy with the current wording, I personally think it's less likely to have those cases like Wikipedia does. Yi Zhe Wu 18:20, 29 April 2007 (CDT)

section "An Example" contains false information

This fragment was taken from Wikipedia, and (I assume automatically) "Wikipedians" was replaced by "Citizens".

"It might help to consider an example of a biased text and how Citizens have rendered it at least relatively unbiased. On the abortion page, early in 2001 [...]"

I think that in this case it should say "Wikipedians", perhaps with some clarification, like a link to the Wikipedia page. --Ion Alexandru Morega 05:12, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks--deleted. --Larry Sanger 07:55, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

Pseudoscience

The majority vs. minority thing works well for crackpot ideas, but what about raging controversies like global warming? My reading of the science over the last 10 years indicates both (1) strong scientific support for the idea that it's mostly natural and (2) occasional polls showing a solid minority of scientists leaning toward man-made causation (but nothing like a "consensus" favoring it.

So should a CZ article on climate call the pro-anthropogenic view a "minority" view on this basis, or should our project agree with Democrats and Greens that the minority is on the other side, i.e., that there is an overwhelming consensus favoring AGW (as the recent "literature search" published in Science indicated)? --Ed Poor 20:32, 26 May 2007 (CDT)

Ed, I think your assumption is incorrect. Most scientist do agree global warming exist and is caused by carbon emission. It's undeniable. The view that global warming doesn't exist, or human activities did not contribute to it, is a minority view. Yi Zhe Wu 21:29, 26 May 2007 (CDT)

Do we have an instance here of conflicting (and unsupported) assertions? "Most scientists do agree that global warming exists..." is likely to be near the truth. Why couple to it "...and is caused by (manmade) carbon emmissions" when this last statement is clearly more controversial?--Janos Abel 05:33, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

Without taking a position on this, the real question here is a strictly empirical and factual one: how many climate scientists (not all scientists--who cares about them?) believe that global warming is caused by carbon emissions?" I think, but do not know, that it is still a large majority.

Now, the neutrality issue here is certainly not whether the article should be biased in favor of AGW because it's the majority relevant-scientist view. The article ought not to take sides, period. But if there is limited space in an article, or as an article expands, the proportion of (unbiased) space spent on non-AGW views should be commensurate with the degree of acceptance of the views among the relevant scientists.

This would not be the case in an article that is specifically devoted to summarizing the debate itself, as opposed to the state of the art.

I'd also like to point out that, as with intelligent design, we can have long meaty articles about views that are widely rejected by most scientists. (Just not idiosyncratic, clearly crackpot theories.) --Larry Sanger 06:15, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

New Proposal

See [1] for a proposal from Russell Potter.

Propagating the flat earth myth

In the introduction section of this policy, we have a poor example:

In the Middle Ages, we "knew" that the Earth was flat. We now "know" otherwise.

Historians of science have been arguing for years against this mythical characterization of medieval thought. Here is an overview of the facts. I suggest changing the example to the similar, and historically accurate, notion of the solar system revolving around the earth. —Eric Winesett 09:33, 24 November 2007 (CST)

Agreed wholeheartedly. I'd like to see this particular false notion stopped also (along with many other inaccurate but prevalent ideas about the so-called "dark ages" being close-minded and backward). I don't see any reason to stop it from being changed to "In the Middle Ages, we "knew" that the Sun revolved around the Earth ..." — the essential point is not lost in any way. Please go ahead and change it Eric. I'd do it now myself but as it was your suggestion ... Mark Jones 12:26, 24 November 2007 (CST)

I would have changed it myself, but the page is protected from editing. I'm hoping someone with the proper authority will respond. —Eric Winesett 19:03, 24 November 2007 (CST)

Oh yes indeed, also the Wikipedia article on flat earth makes that clear. Harald van lintel 11:40, 25 November 2007 (CST)

For the record: the example has now been changed. (Thanks to Larry S.) —Eric Winesett 20:41, 25 November 2007 (CST)

Help sought

Could you (anyone) help me compile a diverse set of neutrality "cases" that can be the subject of a guide to the practical application to the policy? --Larry Sanger 08:54, 25 November 2007 (CST)

Here, or by private email to you? Hayford Peirce 11:45, 25 November 2007 (CST)

Not sure what you mean... Wikipedia's NPOV Tutorial contains sections with useful negative examples

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial :-)

Harald van lintel 12:09, 25 November 2007 (CST)

Suggestions for a few small text improvements

- In "Expert knowledge and neutrality ", there is talk of the views of "mainstream scientists". That is a strange - and I'd say, even unscientific - charicature. Scientists generally have (or should have) their own personal views on different topics, and those views certainly change over time. Of course, most of these views are necessarily "mainstream" or at least "popular", but no good scientist can be a "mainstream scientist" in that sense. Mainstream science requires skeptism about the correctness of scientific theories, and not mental slavery.

My suggestion: "any article about a topic about which the relevant experts indeed agree with mainstream opinion."

- In "To write neutrally is to write for the enemy, too", the following logic looks faulty to me:

"If each of us individually is permitted to write totally biased stuff in our Citizendium contributions, then it is impossible that the policy is ever violated."

In practice, two authors with opposing biases could decide to co-author an article whereby each uses his/her expertise to support the respective points of view. In practice, this is more likely to result in fair representation, as most people are less well informed about the contrary arguments. That section should thus be rephrased to stress that authors must either "write for the enemy" or request support "from the enemy" for a fair representation of the conflicting viewpoint (I don't know yet how that works here).

- In "Resolving disputes about neutrality", the reply seems to miss a word: "Would that people asked this question more often".

Harald van lintel 12:03, 25 November 2007 (CST)

To write neutrally is to write for the enemy, too

The third paragraph of the "To write neutrally is to write for the enemy, too" section contains "college try". Delete the spurious "college" perhaps? --Warren Schudy 16:38, 2 January 2008 (CST)

I might have chosen different phrasing for that, but "college try" contains the very specific meaning we are after here, see this. Stephen Ewen 15:24, 8 January 2008 (CST)

imaginary arguments

The rule should make it clear that CZ articles do not have to include imaginary arguments that no one actually has made.

For any historical statement, say, there are MANY possible alternative statements that someone could make. If no one has made it, do not mention it. If a significant minority believe in an alternative then it should be mentioned.

Therefore I suggest a change in line with our pragmatic goal:

current: We resolve the tension between expert knowledge and neutrality pragmatically. Expert knowledge and opinion receives top billing and the most extensive exposition. But, where it is or would be contradicted by some significant portion of the populace (not just a tiny percentage), the contrary popular view, as well as its grounds, should be noted as well. In this case, the attitudes of experts toward the popular views should be fully explored, because that is, after all, a very important part of the whole dialectic about the topic.

proposed new: We resolve the tension between expert knowledge and neutrality pragmatically. Expert knowledge and opinion receives top billing and the most extensive exposition. But, where it is contradicted by some significant portion of the populace (not just a tiny percentage), the contrary popular view, as well as its grounds, should be noted as well. In this case, the attitudes of experts toward the popular views should be fully explored, because that is, after all, a very important part of the whole dialectic about the topic.

that is drop the or would be which allows for nonexistent opinions not held by anyone. I think this is a minor change because nonexistent views that have not actually been expressed cannot be held "by some significant portion of the populace." Richard Jensen 13:58, 8 January 2008 (CST)

This really can't work, because very many claims made, even in the best, most authoritative encyclopedia articles, are unique, first-time-ever claims. We have to use the subjunctive mood because most specific claims in our articles haven't been widely considered. --Larry Sanger 14:06, 8 January 2008 (CST)

we must be pragmatic. Wait for something to happen before we respond. We should not include nonexistent arguments that no one has made, for they violate the rule that positions have to be actually held by a "significant portion" of the population. If the portion is zero, or near zero, CZ does not mention it.Richard Jensen 15:01, 8 January 2008 (CST)

I consider it to be good evidence that we would face some objections to our claims, if our own contributors raise objections. That's perfectly pragmatic. In short, we need to be "writing for the enemy"--i.e., writing in a way that we can anticipate will make everyone as happy as possible, or equally angry anyway. --Larry Sanger 15:13, 8 January 2008 (CST)

The Constabulary has removed a conversation here that either in whole or in part did not meet Citizendium's Professionalism policy. Feel free to remove this template and take up the conversation with a fresh start.

We've becoming rather too personal in the above (removed) exchange--albeit in a very thinly-veiled way. If it were the first time we had covered these issues, I might leave the discussion in place in the interests of a full airing of grievances.

Please take these issues, which have questionable relevance to the neutrality policy, to the forums. (This discussion of the neutrality policy belongs on the forums as well.) Richard and Steve: please stop attempting to talk to each other, unless you can, somehow, bury the hatchet. --Larry Sanger 19:53, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Larry, I was trying to talk to the project, not really Jensen. Lack of writing neutrally is just a fruit of a deeper issue. The root is what I talked about here, the lack of which produces dysfunction in the system, which creates dysfunctional "rules" that people have to live by to exist within a system, the living by which is itself very unhealthy. The "rules for authors" I wrote are very real should; they should never be applicable.

This problem will outlive whatever happens to be current right now. My biggest concern is that the problem means we just won't get, or keep, the authors we need to really take off, and I really think that would be a tragedy.

Stephen Ewen 20:42, 8 January 2008 (CST)

If your comment was slightly passive-aggressive, then it was still hardly deletion worthy. I strongly dislike the policy that allows for such liberal use of comment deletion. Worse, the ideas circulating in the forums of removing them from the history struck me is very unusual. Even if comments are disruptive, I'd rather comment on it's incivility and/or block the user and ignore the comment. The comments often speak for themselves and people know to avoid the person it came from for a while. Removing them creates more drama and a sense of censorship that its worth, especially when people don't agree that something is a "personal attack" or "uncivil". WP may sometimes be too loose with outright trolling, but I'm starting to prefer that over the atmosphere here. It feels somewhat intimidating, artificial, and ridden with violent anti-Wikipedia reactionism/bashing. Aaron Schulz 21:40, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Steve, have a look at this: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1471.0.html --Larry Sanger 21:08, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Well, the forums appear to be a better place to discuss this, especially as it was getting off-topic. Though I still don't like comment removal unless there are threats or the offending comment is just all profanity or such. So I guess I'm not a fan of the removal policy. Aaron Schulz 21:40, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Fair play to you, Aaron: you're free to express your dissatisfaction with the policy. --Larry Sanger 21:53, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Typo

In: Introduction: the basic concept of neutrality and why the Citizendium must be unbiased

[...]variety of conflicting theories constitute what we call "human knowledge." [...]

(last period and quotes should be inverted) --Nereo Preto 03:00, 20 January 2008 (CST)

Really, I think I can boldly and without fear of constradiction state that, no matter how important the page, there's never a need to first discuss fixing typos. It's a wiki. Stephen Ewen 03:31, 20 January 2008 (CST)

Well, ok, but the page is locked for me... thanks for the fix. --Nereo Preto 04:01, 20 January 2008 (CST)

Ah, sheesh, I did not even notice that this had been protected. Sorry! Stephen Ewen 11:56, 20 January 2008 (CST)

page locked

Page is locked - can't move the template. --Todd Coles 12:16, 24 January 2008 (CST)

National/ethnic disputes

I like this page's statement that we do not give equal weights to all viewpoints - despite the fact that we describe them all. The most popular views will be more described & expressed. It would simply be ridiculous to write an article about Global Warming & provide pro- and anti- advocacies equally.

I think that this page should elaborate more on international/ethnic disputes. For example, if Russia were to suddenly claim/dispute Alaska, what would the article on Alaska look like?

Wikipedia's "NPOV" policy stinks because it doesn't really emphasize that not all viewpoints are equally accepted. Therefore people take advantage of this ambuity & pushes for radical changes & then accuse those who vehemently reject the changes to be biased or extreme - when 2 viewpoints should be shown equally. (Chunbum Park 14:10, 22 February 2008 (CST))

Does the earth really revolve around the sun?

This policy asserts that the earth revolves around the sun. It also states that: "Citizendium takes the position that all positions held by a significant portion of the populace in general, not just mainstream experts, must be fairly represented." 21% of the populace in general believes that the sun revolves around the earth. [2] It would follow that this policy and our astronomy articles should be revised to state that there is an alternative opinion about whether the earth revolves around the sun.

... I am giving this ridiculous example because I believe the wording concerning the handling of the opinions of the general populace needs some refinement. Some of the opinions held by the general populace are just plain wrong and should be ignored.Richard Williams 19:11, 19 July 2008 (CDT)

Maybe 21% in America does, but not for rest of English speaking countries. And even then, the undeniable, the scientific, and the empirically proven truth is that the earth revolves around the sun. There can be no room for alternative opinion regarding this issue, and we have a moral obligation to present the truth. That obligation is infinite, and it cannot be compromised even by threats of human extinction. Maybe not. (Chunbum Park 21:16, 19 July 2008 (CDT))

Actually, with respect, I think you are both mistaken. Indeed, insofar as there are still people who believe the Earth revolves around the sun, then on certain articles (e.g., Earth, sun, heliocentrism) that is an important fact to report, if only for anthropological interest. But to be shocked at this suggestion is to misunderstand the policy entirely. After all, we should contextualize the report about the (ignorant) view that it is held only by uneducated people, and that no scientist holds the view. Other sources might omit this interesting and relevant fact about our uneducated fellows; CZ will not. --Larry Sanger 21:54, 20 July 2008 (CDT)

Going back to the summer, I think the NY Times article was about ignorance, not belief. Did they ask people what the believed (as in, that's what my religion teaches)? If so, then this is part of the science and religion conflict, and not about ignorance.

In the context of creationism and evolution, we must distinguish between ignorance and ideology. Most Americans, for example, are aware of what mainstream biology textbooks say about evolution: particularly, (1) that the various forms of life came into being over millions of years and (2) that natural causes alone can account for this completely. Yet 40% of American adults reject this mainstream idea.

Should we say that the Young Earth Creationists are "ignorant", or rather "stubborn" or biased or something? --Ed Poor 20:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey Ed, are you here now? How interesting!  :-) Anyway, I like your reply a lot. You make an excellent point. Statistics, especially about opinion polls, almost never can be used without interpretation. It's hardly as if the 21% of Americans firmly believes that the sun goes around the Earth. That's just how they answered the poll question. I'm sure that 99.9% of that 21% couldn't give a flying flip about the question one way or the other. --Larry Sanger 04:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Larry, you say that no scientist holds the view that the sun orbits the earth. How do you define scientist? Suppose some persons calling themselves scientist join CZ and write scientifically looking articles claiming that the sun circles the earth, herewith referring to articles in "peer-reviewed journals" and web-sites of "eminent astronomers", where persons of the same opinion, also calling themselves scientist, publish "proofs" that the sun revolves around the earth, then are you sure you could distinguish these pseudo-scientists from main-stream scientists? And if you could, would you do more than referring the persons involved to this page, while asking both the main-stream and pseudo-scientists to stay neutral and respect (or tolerate) each other's views? After you've answered this, please consider my next question: how about a very similar and comparable scientific dispute that for main-stream scientists is equally silly, but about a topic that goes somewhat deeper into science so that you yourself don't have an a priori opinion about who's right?--Paul Wormer 14:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Paul, I'm a Ph.D. philosopher, and I've been thinking about this stuff for a long time. I get it.  :-)

I trust CZ science editors can recognize who is a scientist and who isn't--and can also recognize the borderline cases as well. I do ask us all to tolerate each others' views, but also to describe who holds various views appropriately in articles, and also to tolerate exchanges of arguments in the article--which in my opinion tend to make (real) scientists look very good and pseudo-scientists look very bad. But that's just my opinion. My views about tolerance and neutrality are pretty across-the-board. This doesn't mean that I think we should give equal credibility to (what I personally would call) pseudo-science. After all, I think exactly what CZ:Neutrality Policy says: we lead with and emphasize the mainstream expert opinion, and we apportion limited space, when necessary to explain competing views, according to the proportion of well-informed opinion (meaning, again, first and foremost experts, but also everyone else to a lesser extent). I can't give you any more without a more specific case, but you've seen how I've dealt with global warming and homeopathy. --Larry Sanger 15:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

What the lawyers call "fruit of the poisoned tree"

If I may, I'd like to simply make a reply to text on the main page, and then get to an issue that I have not seen discussed.

It's worth observing that, at least in the humanities, scholars are trained so that, even when trying to prove a point, one must bring forth counter-arguments that seem to disprove one's thesis, so that one can explain why the counter-arguments fail.

This may be true in the humanities, but not necessarily in experimental science or engineering. Now, there are different kinds of peer-reviewed material, such as experimental tests of formal hypotheses, and there are meta-analyses and reviews. Especially in engineering, there can be a very vigorous peer review process, as in the Internet Engineering Task Force, but it is not a classical journal process, but one adapted to electronic collaboration not using wiki technology. Many experimental papers state a hypothesis, with background literature showing how it was formed, but simply do not try to address counter-arguments. Instead, the article might use quantitative methods to describe the confirmation or rejection of the hypothesis, perhaps with various estimation of the reliability of the data. Confidence limits and such are especially common in medical literature.

I mention this because it cannot be assumed that humanities approaches are adopted in all rigorous fields. While it is dated, C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures still raises important questions. I happen to regard Lewis Thomas' The Youngest Science, about medical research, to pose some of the concerns very well.

Let me move, however, to things that might be called intellectual fraud in science and engineering, and "fruit of the poisoned tree" in law. The core of such argument is that if it is established that the early work in a study is falsified, or at best negligent, derivative material simply cannot be used.

If the authors of a study, especially one published as a book and not going through peer review, cite a respected source as the basis for their hypothesis, what weight can be given to the rest of their work if it can be demonstrated that the source absolutely did not say what they claim it said. Instead, the authors redefined claimed their key term was supported by a particular chapter of an authoritative book. Online searching of the text shows that the chapter literally does not contain the term that they use. Further, they equate a term of art, generally accepted in the literature of the field, to their de novo definition of a term about which their study centers, to something completely different than the accepted meaning.

I contend that a study that, at best, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the cited source, and at worst a deliberate misrepresentation to support an idiosyncratic position, is not worthy of a CZ article specifically about the study. When there is supplementary evidence, often misrepresenting primary sources or being extremely selective about them, suggesting the authors of the study are pushing an agenda, the case against having the article becomese even stronger.

It doesn't make sense, given limited expert time, to divert the experts from working on clearly articulated articles about difficult but not idiosyncratic topics. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I understand the objection, or, to the extent that I do, that I agree with it. It is certainly interesting to me that there might be different methods or standards in the sciences vs. the humanities when it comes to fairly representing the opposition, but this needs more discussion. --Larry Sanger 00:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)