User:PseudoscienceFTL

=About Me - Ṗ $ eud ♠ sḉienḉeḞ Ṯ Ḷ= I am a botanist and freethinker

My goal in Wikipedia and life is to stop the dissemination of false information. The pseudosciences are a threat to reason, progress, and the mental evolution of mankind - "Pop Science" is a great way to introduce people to the wonders of our universe, but when it is interspersed with information about ghosts and bigfoot, we're sending the wrong message. Sometimes a little bit of knowledge is far mroe dangerous than ignorance. I love (and write) fiction of all types, and am fascinated by the science of ethnobotany; however I recognize that this science is the study of how people use plants not a study of how effective the plants are. I take it upon myself to clarify, for example, the diffence between ethnobotany and alternative medicine and real, empirically proven science.

While many people believe many things, the goal of an encyclopedia is not to misinform. There should be pages about cryptozoology (e.g.) but it should always be clear this is a form of fiction. Alternative medicine has become a real danger to many people - plant and animal extracts have caused many species to become endangered or even extinct, not to mention the millions of people every year that die unnecessarily. Herbs and animal parts are very commonly tainted with poisons including (but not limited to): heavy metals and human waste.

The alternative medicine market is truly a scam (whether or not the practitioners believe they are helping) - and to help stop it we must not present it as scientific information.

I also won't be contributing to discussions on "main pages" such as talk:alternative medicine simply because I didn't come here to argue. I also hope to add as much as I can to WP:PLANTS, and get rid of some of those botany stubs!