Talk:Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing/Archive 1

Second AfD nomination
Just noticed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing (2nd nomination). &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:27, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Mindfulness-based approaches: are they all the same?
"It is noteworthy, however, that current empirical studies of MM and meditation-based MBI have been criticized for several methodological shortcomings, such as absence of control groups, absence of randomization or randomization details, small sample size, and the frequent use of a waiting list as a comparator, which does not allow for distinguishing between specific and nonspecific (e.g., deriving from the simple expectation of a benefit) effects of MM interventions (Chiesa & Serretti, 2010). Further limitations of current studies include the frequent absence of follow-up measures, the fact that they frequently rely on self report instruments (Chiesa & Serretti, 2010), and the frequent differences across interventions with respect to total duration, homework, practices, nonmanualized interventions (e.g., Toneatto & Nguyen, 2007; Winbush, Gross, & Kreitzer, 2007)."

I would say that pretty much is critical of the journal. Also (given that this is one of the citations being used to establish notability) excluding it form the article seems wrong.Slatersteven (talk) 12:44, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I would suggest then we put in

"At least one study published by it has been criticized by the Journal of Clinical Psychology for methodological shortcomings (such as "frequent differences across interventions"".Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Either this is a notable cite, and thus is relevant or it is not (and thus cannot be used to establish notability.)Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it's not. There are 3 references in that quote and only Winbush et al. was published in Explore. The quote points to "limitations" in current studies, which is hardly a criticism or a very mild one at best. You'll find lots of remarks like that for many articles in many journals. To conclude from this that "At least one study published by it has been criticized by the Journal of Clinical Psychology for methodological shortcomings (such as 'frequent differences across interventions'" is synthesis. And an oblique citation like that does not contribute anything to the notability of Explore, either. --Randykitty (talk) 13:00, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

"Has been accused" weasel wording
I'm concerned over the weasel-wording of "The journal has been accused of publishing 'truly ridiculous studies'." Not only does this wording violate WP:WTA, but studies published in the journal were truly ridiculous, and I don't think there is any serious contention that this is not the case. That's just a fact, and we should present it as such. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:56, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The quotes I've added and attributed with references from notable commentators offer alternatives. EdChem (talk) 16:21, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

"Medical journal"
An IP favour's the magazine's self-identification as a "medical journal". However, the editors area faith healing promoter, an alternative-to-medicine practitioner and the crank Dean Radin, who has no evident medical qualifications at all. It is claimed to be indexed and abstracted by PubMed, but most articles in Explore do not appear in PubMed (I have checked a fair number over the years). No reliable independent source is cited for the claim that it is a medical journal. The current issue pimps Chopralalia (aka quantum flapdoodle) as a tool for "open communications" (mind your brains don't fall out); Emotional Freedom Techniques; aromatherapy; an incoherent paper on torsional pendulum oscillations and "meditation by convection currents", which any electrical engineer will find hilarious; the amazing finding that "Ultrasound-Diagnosed Uterine Fibroids Are Not Associated with Creativity Scores" (because, you know, there is no remotely plausible reason they should be, this is one of the most ridiculous research questions ever asked); a paper pimping mindfulness; and literal Frankenchicks, "Rescue of Moribund Chicken Embryos by Extremely Low-Frequency Electric Fields".

This is not a medical journal any more than medical Hypotheses is a medical journal. It's a fanciful collection of absurd papers reviewed and published by people whose critical faculties appear to be absent. Guy (Help!) 01:08, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The NLM catalog lists it as included not just in PubMed, but also in MEDLINE and even in the highly-selective curated Index Medicus, so why some articles wouldn't appear in PubMed is a mystery to me. And, whether fortunately or unfortunately, it is not up to us WP editors to judge the quality or lack thereof of a journal. If it is as crappy as you say, surely some sources exist and we could cite those. But given that it is in IM, I don't see how we can escape describing it as a "peer-reviewed medical journal". Note that this is simply a description and doesn't say anything about the quality of the peer review or of the "medical journal" part. --Randykitty (talk) 14:35, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * And inclusion in these indexes is a mystery to me, since the editorial team has no medical research background and is made of prominent proponents of bullshit. You keep removing the verifiable fact that Dean Radin is on the board. Why? Others think the inclusion of a notorious crank on the board is something that readers might actually want to know, and it's supported by the exact same sources as support the inclusion of Dossey. Regardless, whatever we might call it, a medical journal it is not. I suggest we leave it at journal. Guy (Help!) 14:45, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, read [ this]. Seriously. Chocolate imbued with "intent" (aka wishful thinking). And it's not an accident. They also promote "distant healing". Of course if we applied Wikipedia's normal standards to this article we'd delete it, as reality-based commentary is on blogs and other sites and the flattering self-description is entirely self-sourced. Instead we have insistence on having an article because being in an index apparently confers inherent notability, but we can't have WP:NPOV because there are zero reliable independent sources. Tricky. Guy (Help!) 14:53, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with Guy. Peer-reviewed it may be, but only in the fringe "sciences" it peddles. I checked out some recent articles and a soggier collection of cod philosophy and biased methodology would be hard to find. "In the spirit of action research, this study was conceptualized with a holistic view of human health, using a mixed method design of grounded theory as an emergent method." – indeed, and I think the validity of its results well reflects that. No doubt everybody's databases, including naturally enough Elsevier's own, are overawed by the words "science", "medicine", "peer review" and above all "Elsevier" but have been unable for whatever reason to join the dots. In databases it may be, a medical journal it certainly is not. Oh, and what is so shameful about Dean Radin that he must be airbrushed out? (rhetorical question, as if we didn't know) &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:08, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry Guy, but I'm not going to read an article published in this journal to decide whether it is nonsense or not. That is not what WP editors are supposed to do. Please see WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Similar, to qualify the editors as faith healer or something is suggestive, again not something that we're supposed to do. If you have reliable sources that say "John doe is a faith healer and this influences his editing", that's fine. But for other journals we don't list editors as being "professor of surgery" or "Nobel Prize winner" either, so I don't see why we should do it here. And I am not trying to "airbrush" anybody out. Per WP:JWG we only list a journal's chief editor, not any subordinate editors (unless there are reliable sources that say something about the influence the person has had on the journal). The journal's homepage clearly lists one editor as the main editor ("managing editor"), so that's the one we should list. But it is minor and if you think he's important enough to be mentioned, go ahead (but I lodge my protest here). I get it that you don't like this journal. Get over it. We write what reliable sources report. Nothing less, nothing more. Index Medicus only indexes medical journals. So that's a very reliable and very authoritative source reporting that this is a "medical journal". Please self-revert. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 15:22, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That's okay, and I must apologise for misreading your intentions. But the journal's own home page says that it, "addresses the scientific principles behind, and applications of, evidence-based healing practices from a wide variety of sources, including conventional, alternative, and cross-cultural medicine. It is an interdisciplinary journal that explores the healing arts, consciousness, spirituality, eco-environmental issues, and basic science as all these fields relate to health." I really do not read that as a "medical journal", and I might point out that claiming it is one based on its presence in databases including such journals is WP:OR. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:45, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Article creator here. Personally, I prefer the journal's self-identification as "an interdisciplinary journal that explores the healing arts, consciousness, spirituality, eco-environmental issues, and basic science as all these fields relate to health." This is why I added "interdisciplinary journal" to the lead where "medical journal" used to be. Everymorning (talk) 15:50, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I was busy restoring "interdisciplinary" for that reason, while you were posting here. As a minor point, if an interdisciplinary journal is intended to carry the odd serious medical study than it might not be inconsistent to include it in a medical-only database, but that still does not make it a medical journal. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:02, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * On the list of editors, the official web site gives Dossey as the Executive Editor and the other two as co-Editors in Chief. There are plenty of lower-ranking editors. WP:JWG seems a little vague on where to draw the line. Should we remove the two Editors-in-Chief from the lead or not? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:58, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Far as I know, Index Medicus only includes medical journals. And I almost always remove "cross-disciplinary/interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary/whateverary" from journal articles, because it is promotional. The operational part in the journal's self description is "as all these fields relate to health". It doesn't publish on, say, environmental issues per se, but only as much as they pertain on health. That's part of medicin s.l., in my book. And for all articles on academic journals we provide a link to a "journal" article (academic journal, scientific journal, or medical journal). Would you rather describe this as a "scientific journal"? --Randykitty (talk) 16:26, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Alternative treatments may relate to "health" but that does NOT imply that they relate to medicine. As the alternative medicine article says, "Alternative therapies or diagnoses are not part of medicine". That rules this out as a "medical journal" unless you can get the alternative medicine article changed. Both the journal site and Elsevier's site describe it as an "interdisciplinary journal" so it is hard to claim that this wording is just puff without a reliable source to say so. And frankly, looking at the widely varying article topics, it seems about right. This is probably why the classification into sub-disciplines of academic, scientific or medical makes little sense here, as it is intended to cover all three as well as alternative disciplines which fit in none. Elsevier have created an anomaly, bless their little cotton socks, and I'd suggest that the most applicable policy here is WP:COMMONSENSE. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:52, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Your quote from the journal page is quite selective. It also says that the journal "addresses the scientific principles behind, and applications of, evidence-based healing practices". Sounds like medicine to me. And we use primary non-independent sources for non-controversial information. I maintain that publishers (like Elsevier and this journal) use "interdisciplinary" as interesting-sounding promotion. There's a whole pile of editorials written by Dossey. I don't doubt that if you dig through them, you'll find statements somewhere praising the journal. We don't use such stuff either. So I don't need a reliable source that says that this journal and Elsevier use promotional language on their website. Instead, to keep "interdisciplinary" in the article, you need a reliable source independent of the subject to support that particular piece of puffery. Please note that "medical journal" and "scientific journal" are sub-classes of "academic journal", so this rag is at least that. And we don't need WP:COMMONSENSE (or the alternative medicine article) because we have sources (i.e. Index Medicus). That this doesn't fit with our perception is, I repeat, immaterial. --Randykitty (talk) 18:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I didn't know that the others were sub-classifications of academic journal. I suppose that even peer-reviewed woo deserves that description (try filtering out the woo from academic philosophy and see how little bedtime reading you have left). So yes, I would accept that. I remain unsure about removing "interdisciplinary" - it seems plainly descriptive enough to match the present rather unusual case without overtones of puff (save only the implication that we are talking about "disciplines" here - see note on the more woo-minded philosophers). &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:22, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Radin is now in the body of the article with characterisation from an outside source and indicating he is co-editor-in-chief. EdChem (talk) 16:23, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * This discussion of the executive editor is certainly relevant and includes criticisms of the remote healing study. I'm willing to do it but it can't be now, so if someone else wants to have a go, great.  :)  EdChem (talk) 16:52, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Executive editor vs editor in chief
Executive editor redirects to editor-in-chief; do these terms mean the same thing? Everymorning (talk) 15:39, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Not usually..Typically for a scientific journal Editor in chief is the person who is expected to have enough prestige and professonal contacts to attract major authors to the publication; executive editor runs the office. It sometimes is the equivalent of senior and junior editor, but not always. Nut publications are idiosyncratic. I'll try  to find a source and and divide that article.  The e-i-c-is almost always the key figure in success of a journal, because that success depends on getting major articles. I've said a few times without challenge at publisher's conventions that the only important thing a publisher has to do is to get the right editor in chief.  DGG ( talk ) 14:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, we are going to be challenged to find a sufficient superlative to describe just how outstanding a job Elsevier managed with this journal! EdChem (talk) 14:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Another term often used is managing editor, perhaps "executive editor" should redirect there rather than to EIC, although I have seen cases where the EIC was called "executive". Managing editors usually take care of the day-to-day running of a journal, but they don't make important decisions, that's for the EIC, as DGG points out. Explore seems to be one of those cases where the "executive editor" is the chief editor (see https://www.journals.elsevier.com/explore-the-journal-of-science-and-healing, which only mentions Dossey), which is why I removed mention of the "co-editors-in-chief", but that has been overruled in the rush to make this article a hatchet job. Normally, we only include other editors than the chief one if there are reliable sources that confirm that this person had a significant influence on the journal's functioning (which is not the same as having published an article in the journal which has been criticized - or simply: who has been criticized). --Randykitty (talk) 14:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

cherrry-picking-
All journals publish absurd articles at times. It was reputable journals that published Cold Fusion and Duesberg's challenge to the HIV theory of AIDS. Signaling out particular articles doesn't show that most of them are bad. I will be adding a paragraph trying to show they are typical. `` — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 10:09, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes they do. But this journal specialises in them. Everybody in the skeptical community knows this, but we can't show it with the weight of sourcing it requires for neutrality because there are, bluntly, no reliable independent analytical sources about the journal at all. The spécialités de la maison are mind-body woo (Radin's special area of interest) and refuted alternative medicine claims (Dossey's). Dossey himself has published dozens of crap papers in this journal. Guy (Help!) 20:15, 19 December 2016 (UTC)