Talk:Denialism/Archive 5

Sentence about "most usual"
,  Now I understand the objection to the language:


 * This is most usual for animals on farms, in laboratories and those used for entertainment...

explained in this edit. I think the phrase "most usual" meant that this was where the abuse most usually occurred, rather than that most animals on farms, science labs and in entertainment suffer and/or are abused, which would need strong RS. This revised statement:


 * This has occurred for animals on farms, in laboratories, and those used for entertainment...

is an understatement compared to source 1's:


 * How can it be that sites of animal suffering are all around us in factory farms, transportation, rodeos, abattoirs and laboratories..

I have not been able to review the other two RS's. DrChrissy, can you provide more quotes like the above? In the meantime, I suggest changing the sentence to say:


 * The most common examples of animal suffering include "factory farms, transportation, rodeos, abattoirs and laboratories".

or something like this. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:23, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

There was almost an edit conflict here and I have taken the liberty of removing my own section heading as my comment below is relevant to the thread David opened.

and others. Just to clear up a potential minor misunderstanding, my edit about denialism of pain and suffering is intended to be applicable to the population as a whole, not just farmers, animal researchers and those using animals for entertainment. I believe the sources I used also had this in mind. If the language is unclear, perhaps we can clarify. DrChrissy (talk) 21:27, 9 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree that "most usual" was OR on my own part, so Trypto's edit was completely justified. DrChrissy (talk) 21:34, 9 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, yes my point is that there are an awful lot of farmers and animal scientists who are not denialists in this way. Saying "this is most usual" is similar to saying that it is "typical". And yes, we should not make it sound like the rest of society is exempt, per what comes later about eating meat. As for the quote from the Wick source ("How can it be..."), that is more like a rhetorical point than an analysis of how frequently it occurs, so I don't think that it justifies presenting it as typical (in contrast to presenting it as a noteworthy problem when it does occur). I also do not think that it supports describing it as "most common", for the same reasons. I could argue, per all the cited sources, that it's actually most common when people are eating meat. I'm fine with changing "has occurred" to "occurs". That would make it sound less like something demonstrably rare. And I also have no objection to including the longer list of places, per the source.


 * How about: "This occurs for animals in factory farms, transportation, rodeos, abattoirs, and laboratories."? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about this. I am fine with "this occurs". However, I really don't think rodeos should be specifically identified unless we balance this with pain and suffering in other forms of entertainment using animals, e.g. fox-hunting, bull-fighting, cock-fighting ....and the list goes on. I also disagree with the term "factory farming".  This is most certainly not because I agree with these systems, but because it is inflammatory and rather inaccurate - perhaps like labeling all animal researchers as "vivisectionists". DrChrissy (talk) 21:58, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, and I think the change to "occurs" is just fine the way that it is. I think that you are right that the longer list ends up just being a copy of what, in the source, is more like an expression of the author's opinion. And broadly, I want to be careful about not painting groups of people with too broad a brush. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:06, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Historical note about the five tactics of denialism
The five tactics of denialism were popularized on the blog of the Hoofnagle brothers, then called Denialism.com. But it cannot be claimed (as Mark Hoofnagle did in the blog entry reproduced in The Guardian on 11 March 2009) that Denialism.com "have identified five routine tactics that should set your pseudo-science alarm bells ringing."

The five tactics were devised and posted by an anonymous blog writer, Rev. Dr., on September 19, 2006 in Give Up Blog, who called them "5 features common to [the denialist's] argument and most generalizeable to the phenomenon of denialism," proposing "Conspiracy, Selectivity, The Fake Expert, Impossible Expectations, and Metaphor." On March 18, 2008, Denialism.com reproduced a slightly adapted version of the Give Up post, with full acknowledgment of the original source ("Adapted from Give Up Blog's post with permission").

The first publication of these five tactics in what Wikipedia considers a reliable source was the January 2009 paper by Diethelm & McKee, published in peer reviewed European Journal of Public Health. The Hooofnagle brothers and Diethelm & McKee can be credited for communicating and disseminating the information about the five tactics, but their creation should be attributed to their real author, anonymous blog writer Rev. Dr.

Dessources (talk) 21:50, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 one external links on Denialism. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/exxon_chart.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20113753/site/newsweek/
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/csaph/a12-csaph2-bioengineeredfoods.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060221125539/http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2006/pdf/0219boardstatement.pdf to http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2006/pdf/0219boardstatement.pdf
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/exxon_chart.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060221125539/http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2006/pdf/0219boardstatement.pdf to http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2006/pdf/0219boardstatement.pdf
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v12/n4/pdf/nm0406-369.pdf


 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20113753/site/newsweek/
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/csaph/a12-csaph2-bioengineeredfoods.pdf

Pushing a view
Despite "and the term climate change denialist is applied to people who argue against the scientific consensus that the global warming of planet Earth is a real and occurring event primarily caused by human activity.[5] " being in the body of the article, it was proven by found (thought destroyed) messages that the "scientist" who originally "found" evidence climate change faked the data because the actual evidence found didn't support what he or she wanted to see. Further down, it again comes across as pushing a "proven" agenda which hasn't been proven for sure one way or the other by "have published articles stating corporations are funding" when it should read (my emphasis) "have published articles CLAIMING corporations are funding" and so on.

And the Evolution Theory is still just that, unless there are somehow eye witness accounts someone has been holding back. It is taught with the same fervor and blind belief that is attributed to religious creationism belief. This is evident by the use of the term "creation myth" despite the facts that many religions other than Christianity have in their religious teachings a massive catastrophic event happening at some point in the past. Even the evolution "religious" zealots agree that this happened, otherwise what was it that wiped out the dinosaurs? I am not claiming 100% creationism has been proven to be correct either, just give it the same credence that the religion of the belief in Evolution has what is has, the fact that BOTH are still just THEORIES.

That, and the supposed facts that evolution occurred based on scientific evidence is suspect when the evidence could also be interpretted to support creationism, it is all about perception of the person studying the data. If they are predisposed to believe one thing over another, that evidence will most likely appear to "support" their view point while actually doing nothing of the sort. 32.212.104.223 (talk) 03:44, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * A case in point. Just in case anyone thought we were engaging in "straw man" tactics here. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 04:31, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

What!? Evolution is not a theory my dude! It's been proven through common ancestry (similar bones, shared traits), there is geographical stratification(bones of animals which are in a formal stage of evolution), vestigial traits (e.g. nippes in male humans), and observed changes in our environment - for example changes in moth populations in Britain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CommunismandEquality (talk • contribs) 16:50, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Denial of animal pain and suffering is not denialism
Many people deny many things, but their denial does not necessarily take the shape of denialism, which is the organization of denial making heavy use, in a systematic way, of the five tactics described in the article. The denial of animal pain and suffering described in the section, although of interest, is misplaced here and provides a misleading illustration of the denialism phenomenon. The kind of denial described has more to do with cognitive denial or sociological denial, found for instance in cognitive dissonance, such as the denial described by Festinger in When prophecy fails fails. The denial of animal pain and suffering lacks the key features of denialism: there is no conspiracy theory (such as "people falsely pretend that animals suffer simply because such a claim serves the vested interest of big multinational corporations"); no fake experts ("such Nobel prize winner has said that animals do not suffer"); no selectivity (retaining from the scientific literature the odd articles proving that animals do not suffer); no moving of the goal post ("you think you have shown that animals suffer, but your method of measurement was not good enough"); etc. No animal pain denialist website. Clearly, this section is our of place here. I'm proposing to delete it. It could be moved to article Pain in animals or made into an article in its own right.

Dessources (talk) 00:40, 19 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The content had been there for a while without this objection.  You claim that denialism has 5 key features:
 * conspiracy theory
 * fake experts
 * selectivity of scientific literature
 * moving of the goal post
 * a web-site


 * I do not see these 5 requirements as part of the lede of the article. I'm not sure where you got these "five key features". I am not sure if each of the 5 elements is proven for each of the other items on the lists.   I heard of denialism before there were websites, so I really question requirement #5.  --David Tornheim (talk) 00:05, 23 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I've been really ambivalent about this since I first saw the edit, and I've been waiting for other editors to comment. I see some validity to the specific point about conspiracy theory, perhaps, and that one does not seem to apply to the animal section. But I'm really not sure. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I added Marc Bekoff's opinion, which along with Wicks, who was already in the article, is reliable sourcing linking "denialism" and its characteristics to popular attitudes towards animals. This should take precedence over WP:OR about the supposed criteria a "denialist phenomenon" must meet.


 * Although for that matter, goal-posts have certainly moved, from showing that animals are not automata to showing that they can experience affective states to showing "consciousness" to the mirror test and trying to show the existence of moral behavior among animals. A great overview for that is Rogers & Kaplan. FourViolas (talk) 00:48, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I am the editor who originally inserted the section. I researched this very carefully and deliberately chose RS that used the term "denial" (or similar) - please check the titles for the quickest of checks.  As for the "5 key features" - since when does a web-site constitute a Key feature of a philosophy or belief?  Sorry, but that suggestion is "wayward" - if I could be bothered, I'm sure I could find such a web-site, but it would probably be a blog and therefore not RS. DrChrissy (talk) 12:53, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Just to follow up, take a look at Pain in fish. There are researchers who have made careers from denying that fish, birds reptiles and some mammals can not feel pain because they lack a neocortex. DrChrissy (talk) 13:02, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the whole section is misguided. Most people dont deny that animals we eat for meat can feel pain and suffering. Some including myself just dont care to stop eating meat even if it causes suffering. 74.96.75.234 (talk) 03:55, 22 July 2018 (UTC) It's not denialism to be skeptical about the perception of pain in a wide variety of animals. Scientists are not supposed to anthropomorphize animals when observing their behavior. An adverse reaction to a stimulus could be many things and necessarily pain. We simply do not know with certainty if animals without a neocortex can feel pain. This isn't denialism but rather deduction by observation. Xanikk999 (talk) 05:35, 17 February 2019 (UTC) I personally do not deny that mammals can all probably feel pain but I don't believe that the choice to eat meat is necessarily because of denial of pain. I eat meat even though I know animals suffer in factory farming simply because I like the taste of meat. It's nothing more complicated than that. Xanikk999 (talk) 05:37, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree this section is inappropriate. Boldly removing it ... Alexbrn (talk) 16:39, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I had this one flagged for awhile as dubious too and possibly not appropriate in the context of denialism like climate change denial, etc., but never got around to really checking into it more to see if I would personally outright remove it. At least based on this talk page, I think it's fine to leave it out (WP:ONUS) unless there gets to be consensus for something to include if at all. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:43, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Flat Earth
I have a small quibble wrt the Flat Earth section. It starts: "The superseded belief that the Earth is flat". When was that belief "superseded"? Was it ever even seriously held in the modern era, beyond cranks? Does it matter? I don't think it does. That the Earth is 'round' has been known (one way or another) for millennia, so why even bother to describe this as a superseded belief? Indeed, I thought Flat Earthism was a relatively modern crackpot notion. I'd drop the description. What do others think? 31.125.76.2 (talk) 16:03, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess it depends upon what time period one is considering. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:15, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, see Flat Earth. Alexbrn (talk) 16:52, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Biological Sex Difference Denial (It's a very broad subject, will add more as I research this subject further)
Sex denialism is the idea the idea that Sex is assigned at birth rather than by the gametes produced by an organism. This is commonly cited by the Transgender community to push the idea that they have been wrongly assigned at birth and that it is not a form of mental illness known as Gender Dysphoria.

This includes the idea that biological men can have their menstruation cycles. Which is false as oestrogen and progesterone (produced by the ovaries which biological men do not have) are the key hormones responsible for mentruation. --Buster672 (talk) 14:55, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


 * WP:OR, WP:ONEDAY. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm doing research on the subject of biological difference denial. There're plenty of examples of people that deny/downplay biological difference, I'm doing my due dilligence and I use a third party app called "Newguard" to vet my sources to ensure that these sources are not my own opinion. Please advise me if you think the language seem to push an agenda. --Buster672 (talk) 14:57, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


 * we never use our articles as sources, at any time they might be changed. The sources don't mention biological difference denial or sex denialism, that's your interpretation and what we call original research which is forbidden. Sources need to explicitly discuss the subject. Doug Weller  talk 08:55, 27 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Oh... I put the Wikipedia link so that people can have an easier time reading up on the differences between male and female. I didn't know that the sources must directly mention biological difference denial or sex denial (not the most accurate term in my opinion), I thought I could show the scientific studies that show the biological differences between male and female and then showing what "biological difference denial" said. For example, "the man can get periods too", I used health engine to show that what causes "periods" is rather hormones produced in the ovaries that causes the "periods", which a biological male who has no ovaries obviously can't. Happy to hear from you! Glad you replied --Buster672 (talk) 10:03, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Is historical denialism intended to be treated here or not?
There is a hatnote "For denialism of historical events, see Historical negationism." This would seem to suggest that such information is treated elsewhere, and that this article is about the principle of denialism. But this article then has in its index some instances of historical negation (but only two out of very many that could be listed) with pitifully little discussion of the issue.

If historical denialism is meant to be elsewhere, then those sections should be removed and this article should probably have a more specific title; if not, that section is woefully under-informative, and the hatnote should be removed. Kevin McE (talk) 14:22, 17 November 2020 (UTC)