User talk:Ihcoyc/The problem of anti-supernatural bias/archive 1


 * When it comes to the supernatural, I should clarify that I neither believe nor disbelieve, but I support WP editors who seek to describe these subjects and their adherents in an impartial way. I also agree that since the supernatural is accepted in some form by the vast majority of the world's population (and this also applies to the English speaking population), it should be well documented on Wikipedia and presented in a neutral way.  Even hard-line sceptics are prone to superstition like Simon Singh wearing his lucky tie.  Of the minority, the agnostic position, which is also the scientific position is in my estimation more common than the more hard-line and unscientific, atheistic belief.


 * I am also interested in the impartial reporting of preternatural evidence where the mechanism is as yet unknown as many WP editors take a materialistic view and seek to suppress evidence unless it can be explained simply within the currently known laws of physics.


 * The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry does fall into the realm of Pseudoscience. For example, as far as I know, their Journal the Skeptical Inquirer will not publish articles that challenge their views unlike Journals like the Astrological Journal, which publishes papers which are both sceptical and favourable towards astrology.
 * Robert Currey  talk  13:16, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * While I've never thought of atheism or skepticism as fringe beliefs, I have observed that the word "skeptic" is often misused. As I understand it, a skeptic is one who hasn't decided one way or the other but needs to see more proof. Many of these people calling themselves skeptics are nothing of the kind. They are disbelievers who evangelise their position as vigorously as some believers.


 * My goal in writing Wikipedia articles on religious subjects is to report what is said to have happened. This doesn't mean I believe it. But someone will often put a tag on or write something in the discussion page, saying that the article is insufficiently NPOV and needs a "criticism" section. I fail to see how the addition of a section presenting the "skeptics" or "debunking" viewpoint makes the article NPOV. Two POVs do not an NPOV make. I can put in a "Controversy" section provided I can find enough articles to reference to make it significant, but otherwise these people's demands seem to me as irrelevant as if someone were to ask for a section about dovetail saws in an article about bricklaying. I may have more to add in the near future. --Bluejay Young (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Skepticism is the scientific position, quite literally it is simply the stance of logical positivism - nothing more, nothing less. A person who asserts "there is no god" is not a logical positivist, nor are they making a reasonable claim.  A person who says "I don't believe a god or gods exist because I have no evidence to believe it" is a skeptic.  That supernatural elements are disallowed in science is the normal positivist position as those claims are always made without evidence and because creating a mystery does nothing to solve other mysteries.  "God" is a meaningless word in an objective sense because it has no properties or definitions.  If something called god were one day discovered it would cease to be supernatural and just become natural.
 * Does a large portion of the world believe in the supernatural? Yes.  Does that make science fringe?  Yes, in the same way that intelligence is fringe when compared to the middle of the curve.  When the world fringe is used, however, it is not used in contrast to the masses, it is used in contrast to the mainstream of experts.  Over 90% of the national academy of sciences are atheists and I would imagine this applies equally to scientific academies in other parts of the world.
 * You are absoultely incorrect that there is a bias against phenomena which is known but not understood, both in the sciences or on Wikipedia. There are plenty of drugs, e.g. modanafil, whose mechanism of action is not understood but we have no problem with having an article about it.  Why?  Because we know it does something, we just don't know for sure how it's done.  The problem comes when people make claims that are dubious and contradict known physics and chemistry.  Homoeopathy, for instance, doesn't do anything as far as any testing has shown, and it violates several observed laws of physics.  So yes, in instances like that we are absolutely going to treat it as farcical.  The thing about the fringe is that no one can argue with data.  If homeopathy worked, then it would force us to rethink what we know about the universe.  If astrologists could make accurate predictions or observations more than chance then it would force us to rethink the same.  The problem with fringe believers is that when no evidence is found for something, they dismiss it and appeal to the homage that "absence of evidence is not absence of fact." While this is  true, it is abused and misused.  Take 100 people with a cold, give 50 of them a placebo and 50 of them homeopathic "remedies" - if they perform better than the placebo there is literally nothing a scientist can argue with - we would just have to admit it does something without understanding how it works.  The second the frige has evidence, it ceases to be the fringe and becomes science, plain and simple.
 * There is no bias against the fringe because some ideology prohibits it, there's a bias because of a lack of evidence. Astrology should be incredibly easy to test, and yet no astrologers - whom are part of a multi-million dollar industry, btw - are willing to fund an experiment.  When Carlson published his experiment, the astrologies critiqued and complained, but did anybody bother getting together and simply redoing the experiment taking into account the critiques they made?  No, because, at least according to Adorno, you all know it's bullshit and that an experiment would be a pointless exercise.  Am I wrong?  Prove it.  N o f o rmation  Talk  21:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If astrology is so easy to test, can you set out a fair test of astrology other than one designed by Carlson?
 * Unlike science and many other academic fields, astrology is not funded so astrologers have to make their living commercially. Can you name any astrologers outside of a small number of popular sun sign authors in the media or those who use astrology for financial trading who benefit from this multi-million dollar industry?  There is no funding for research – otherwise astrologers would be doing it.  Research into astrology is self-financed. Astrology is not recommended as a career choice for making money
 * A lot of Wikipedia Editors misunderstood this point. The main people who objected to Carlson were scientists like Professor Eysenck and Professor Ertel who were not astrologers.  The experiment had serious sampling errors and one experiment was used to corrupt another.  The stats show that the astrologers were able to select charts in a blind study to a level greater than chance.  Carlsondata.jpg Hard-line sceptical editors are desperate to cover this up, just like CSICOP tried to cover up the Gauquelin findings.
 * Would an astrological test conducted by astrologers be acceptable to you? If not and without funding who other than a sceptical group like CSI (who have money) would be interested in doing this kind of test?.
 * There is also a taboo among editors of science journals that they will not publish astrology experiments, especially if they favour astrology. The reason is not the quality of the experiments, but the credibility of the Journal would be put in question.
 * There was a similar test to Carlson performed by Neil Marbell in 1986 and though the results favoured astrology, the number of participants was smaller than Carlson and naturally, it was not published in a science journal. There have been many other tests that have replicated Gauquelin.
 * I would participate in a test if you could guarantee that a prestigious science journal like Nature would agree to publish in advance regardless of the results.
 * Also, are your beliefs about astrology based on what you were taught or just based on a feeling or have you tested astrology out empirically? How much have you studied astrology? Have you read any books by astrologers and if so which ones?    Robert Currey   talk  01:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I understand you questions are directed at Noformation but the topic is more than I can ignore. Sorry. (Please feel free to delete or hat as you see fit.)
 * Easy to do but I doubt anything designed by scientists would be considered fair by astrologers.
 * There is no money for research because there is nothing to research. We already have historians.
 * Have Nature publish McRitchie's "analysis" and we'll have something to talk about as Eysenck and Ertel are really worthless on this point (results published in sham journals are less than worthless).
 * Call James Randi. I'm sure he'd love to debunk astrology, again,.... maybe he'd do a TV special.
 * No. It's the lack of science and the waste of time.
 * If it's not published it doesn't count for much of anything around here.
 * Real journals don't do that sort of thing.
 * I've covered the topic over the years.


 * Statistics are great. You can use them for all sorts of things. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 06:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ArtifexMayhem - no problem, I am happy to address any response.
 * It works both ways and usually tests devised by astrologers have been shown to have artifacts by sceptics. The main problems are isolating the variables, difficulty of replication unique variables, the experimenter effect, the observer effect and of course the artifacts.  yet, tests are not impossible - just challenging.  If you would like to provide an outline of a simple test, I will show you possible issues on which both astrologers and sceptics would agree.
 * “there is nothing to research” - you can’t have it both ways.  One criticism of astrologers is that they don’t do enough research to support their claims.
 * McRitchie’s analysis was peer reviewed and published in ISAR. The underlying reason you call astrological Journals sham is because they publish tests about astrology – both favourable and critical.  This is a circular fallacy. Science journals will not consider astrological tests.  Part of the reason is the taboo mentioned above and the other reason, which I think is fair, is that it is not within their specialist domain.  Astrology tests should be published in specialist astrological journals, but this should never justify denying or covering up their results.
 * I did have contact with Randi in the 80s and in response to an invitation to appear on his TV show, I proposed a test to one of his assistants. However, he was only interested in a test which we both knew would not work – matching couples to their sun signs.   His agenda was not investigation but debunking.  The problem with Randi’s tests are as he says he always has an out and he was proud to claim "I can go into a lab and fool the rear ends off any group of scientists."  Professor Ertel proposed a Gauquelin type test for his challenge but Randi cannot and will not handle statistics.  The challenger must sign away all publicity rights and must show evidence that has a p value of p=0.00001!  While statistical significance in social science is p<.05.   The problem is that sceptics have had to rely on a magician with no scientific training like Randi because there is no scientific evidence against astrology.  I would be surprised if you can provide a test other than the flawed Carlson test that supports your belief. If you see neither supportive (which does exist) nor critical evidence for a field that has schools, publications and is supported by everyone who has studied it including scientists,  the scientific position is neither belief nor disbelief.
 * The attitude of Journal editors is no different from yours (point 3) which is that any journal that publishes astrology is a sham journal, therefore why would a journal want to risk being considered sham. It's a catch 22.  Astrology is a taboo subject and most text books reinforce this by repeating criticisms that don’t apply to astrology or were no longer valid 50 years ago.  Anyone who thinks that John Maddox, fellow of CSICOP and editor of Nature would have published Carlson's test if he had realised that it actually supported astrology, has to be very gullible or unaware of the background. No doubt people will say that no one criticised Carlson as it is not in Wikipedia but we both know that the criticism of Carlson by Professor Eysenck and others (including two psychology professors) have been suppressed by dedicated wikilawyering by a group of sceptics.
 * It was published, but IMO it failed to have a minimum number of participants (usually N=> 100) to show significance. Otherwise random results can show false positives.
 * You’re probably right.
 * Can you be more specific as per my original questions?
 * Agreed. Disraeli was right stats can be lies, damn lies... and Carlson is a classic example of how stats can be manipulated in a way that duped thousands of scientists, journalists and even astrologers who accepted it uncritically. Professor Hans Eysenck was at the time the only person who saw through it, but then he was the world's expert on personality assessment data.  However stats can also dismantled, I have crunched the numbers and my analysis has been critically checked by two psychology professors and two science PhDs.  Your stork example is interesting and applies to all science but it is, of course, a straw man argument. Cicero used the same type of criticism to ridicule astrologer’s claim that there was a correlation between the Moon and tides.   Robert Currey   talk  10:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I will respond to your original comment tomorrow, Robert, but I do want to point something out. You criticize Randi for primarily seeking to debunk, rather than explore.  Welcome to science.  Attempting to disprove theories (all theories, not just fringe) is what science does.  Science is an inductive process, and as such can never "prove" anything right, but what we can do is demonstrate something is incorrect (e.g. we can demonstrate the world is not flat in a 4 dimensional plane but can never prove 100% that it is any particular shape).  When a field is firmly established we accept it and further experimentation is done in regards to predictive power, but every theory is tested against itself.  This is why special relativity is published while astrology is not.  There is no taboo or bias against it for any other reason than the fact that it has no evidence, and anything that has been around for 500+ years in human thought should have evidence, there is simply no excuse.  For more see Falsifiability. Anyway, will respond to the rest tomorrow.  N o f o rmation  Talk  11:16, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no hurry for any reply, NoFormation. I take your point and think we may be talking at cross purposes.  In Randi's TV series he was not interested in a test that he could investigate with uncertain results, but one that he knew would fail and therefore could debunk.  Usually the term debunk is an attempt to expose something as false and if it does not debunk, then this is a failure.  Whereas a scientist will always critically review any experiment for flaws and attempt to replicate with an objective view where discovering flaws or inability to replicate is as interesting and as successful as replication. Debunking is not the practice of a good scientist - as it involves prejudice - an assumption that it is false before testing.  Debunking (in this sense) is the classic practice of a pseudoscientist.  For example if a creationist attempts to debunk evolutionary theory, this is no objective scientific investigation into the subject as it is a foregone conclusion that it is false in their mind.   Robert Currey   talk  14:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment. It seems to me that there are a number of issues here.  FWIW, though astrology (and the apparently strong opposition to expanding our coverage of the subject based on its extensive and historically deep literature) was the issue that suggested to me that there might be a problem, it isn't the chief focus, or even the biggest issue.  (The aggressive misuse of WP:MEDRS to exclude folk and traditional medicine may be even worse.)  The problem, very simply, is that we cover things other than science.  We cover ideas that people believe, or used to believe, and our coverage is based on existence rather than truth.  Pointing out that science doesn't endorse curing your warts by sticking your hand in a wet stump while repeating a charm strikes me as killing mosquitoes with a shotgun. = Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 00:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify upon ArtifexMayhem's point, the article I wrote pointing out numerous design and methodological flaws in Shawn Carlson's 1985 Nature article was peer reviewed by experts who were anonymous to me. I received valuable feedback and corrections over several drafts. I challenge any critic to read the article and comment directly on any faults they find. Otherwise there is no rational basis for trying to label the article or the publication in which it appeared a sham. Support for Astrology from the Carlson Double Blind Experiment

This article I wrote, which was rejected by Wikipedia editors, presents no original research; it is not a scientific exploration; there are no hypotheses; there is no new evidence; there is nothing fringe or supernatural about its arguments whatsoever. To my awareness, there is no argument in my article that any self-respecting, rational Wikipedia editor should reject. All of the evidence examined is from the original Nature article itself, quoted in Carlson's own words. What we are left with ladies and gentlemen is naked censorship plain and simple, an unwillingness to have one's beliefs criticized and falsified for whatever reason.

The Randi challenge, also mentioned above, is unlike my challenge to you. Randi has promised a $1 million reward, but if you clear your head and read critically, you will see that the reward is not cash but bonds. Even if Randi is proven wrong and forced to pay, he has the "out" of paying up in worthless bonds. That is what I call a sham. You should be careful about putting your trust in conjurers like Randi and Carlson. They delight in deceiving others, especially intelligent people, and should always be read critically with a high degree of skepticism. Ken McRitchie (talk) 17:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * There can be only one motive behind the Wikipedia "position" to censor the criticism of the 1985 Shawn Carlson double-blind study, and that is to stop the research from going any further. The research has taken a turn in favor of the astrologers and this turn of events evidently goes against the beliefs of the majority of Wikipedia editors who have resorted to guarding the Astrology article by the implementation of a ban on the published critical examinations that cast doubt on the Carlson results. This is very much a head-in-the sand, I'm not listening, I'm not listening, bla-bla-bla, type of response.


 * There is only a modicum of truth in NoFormation's assertion: "Attempting to disprove theories (all theories, not just fringe) is what science does." Researchers and critics are not trying to cause old scientific theories to fail or to falsify them. They are just observing things that the old theories don't explain. They are curious to know why the old theories don't work as they had supposed they should. That is how science operates and that is what is happening in astrology research today. The Carlson experiment has been falsified through the curiosity of scientific researchers, although most of the world, thanks in large part to Wikipedia censorship, is not aware of it.


 * If the Wikipedia censorship is lifted, then the research can go on to the next level as it should. Removing the censorship will enable the open examination of the scientific discourse and the incorporation of the many useful suggestions that have been made to ensure an unbiased replication. Lift the ban! Ken McRitchie (talk) 01:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Who performed the peer review? Another poet? IRWolfie- (talk) 00:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)