User:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased.

Alternative title: All your bias are belong to us

Yes. We are biased.
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once wrote:

Wikipedia's policies ... are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.

So yes, we are biased.


 * We are biased towards science, and biased against pseudoscience.
 * We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
 * We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
 * We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
 * We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathy.
 * We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
 * We are biased towards solar energy, and biased against esoteric energy.
 * We are biased towards actual conspiracies and biased against conspiracy theories.
 * We are biased towards vaccination, and biased against vaccine hesitancy.
 * We are biased towards magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against magnetic therapy.
 * We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
 * We are biased towards laundry detergent, and biased against laundry balls.
 * We are biased towards augmentative and alternative communication, and biased against facilitated communication.
 * We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
 * We are biased towards mercury in saturated calomel electrodes, and biased against mercury in quack medicines.
 * We are biased towards blood transfusions, and biased against blood letting.
 * We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
 * We are biased towards evolution and an old Earth, and biased against young Earth creationism.
 * We are biased towards Holocaust studies, and biased against Holocaust denial.
 * We are biased towards an (approximately) spherical earth, and biased against a flat earth.
 * We are biased towards the sociology of race, and biased against scientific racism.
 * We are biased towards the scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against global warming conspiracy theories.
 * We are biased towards the existence of Jesus and biased against the existence of Santa Claus.
 * We are biased towards geology, and biased against flood geology.
 * We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
 * We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
 * We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
 * We are biased towards Mendelism, and biased against Lysenkoism.
 * We are biased towards Oneirology, and biased against Oneiromancy.

And we are not going to change.

Recommended usage
It is not recommended to reply to another editor with a link to this essay (for example WP:YWAB ).

The target audience we are trying to reach is pretty much immune to "WP:..." wikilinks. They have been bombarded with them again and again and have learned to ignore them.

Instead, cut and paste the entire thing (copy from the edit page so the links don't get lost) without attribution (it is CC0, so no attribution is required) and post it to the discussion page where somebody claimed that Wikipedia Is Biased™. An alternative is to use, which will automatically add in the content of the essay. Be sure to add your signature and an appropriate edit summary.

Another method that sometimes works (but not as well as the cut and paste method) is to make the link look like a normal link instead of a policy shortcut (for example "Yes. We are biased .")

The problem remains that the editors you want to reach have seen so many links to our policies and guidelines that they simply ignore all links, but "Yes. We are biased." is slightly less likely to be ignored than "WP:YWAB".