Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of non-mainstream theories


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was delete. Can&#39;t sleep, clown will eat me 08:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

List of non-mainstream theories
This page was redirected to List of pseudoscientific theories But, of course, non mainstream theories are not pseudoscientific at all. It is just an attempt by some supporters of certain pseudoscientific theories to argue that pseudoscience is just non-mainstream science. I therefore vote to delete this article. Count Iblis 20:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Per above. JoshuaZ 20:46, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * delete as above William M. Connolley 20:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as per the above. Byrgenwulf 22:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: I agree that the title is somewhat biased (that's why it's a redirect rather than the title of the actual article), but to delete it might be an overreaction. Isn't it a fairly likely search term for someone who doesn't know the word "pseudoscientific"? Also, the guidelines at Fringe theories do refer to "non-mainstream theories", apparently as a neutral, all-encompassing term. --Grace 01:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Non-mainstream theories can be respectable theories, they certainly don't belong by definition to the pseudoscience category. So, a redirect to the pseudoscience list would not be appropriate. A list of theories that can be considered to be non-mainstream is very problematic. Of all the scientific theories that exist a certain percentage is non-mainstream, in the sense that most other people working in the field don't buy it but as a theory it is not obviously wrong. But you can't make a rule to demark the boundary between mainstream and non-mainstream. In case of pseudoscience there are reasonable criteria, but even in that case you can expect some borderline cases. So, this is a recipe for POV disputes. Count Iblis 01:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Criteria for non-mainstream are about as easy or difficult as for pseudoscience, and it's certainly less a recipe for POV disputes. Harald88 07:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. There are clear criteria for pseudoscience. The only POV disputes you can get is whether or not a particular theory satisfy these criterea. Of course, you can expect the supporters of such theories to resist their theory being classified as pseudoscience, because it isn't a label they like to see attached to their theory.
 * In case of non-mainstream theories there don't exist unambiguous criterea at all. Supporter of a theories listed as "non-mainstream" may not object as often compared to their pseudoscience collegues, but in case a dispute does arise, there is no way to resolve it using objective criteria. Count Iblis 14:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There are also clear criteria for non-mainstream: just consult textbooks. In practice the criteria are similar to those that now are used for the psuedoscience list: non-mainstream is what mainstream rejects as "wrong". And indeed, Wikipedia is in principle against pejorative labeling of ideas held by certain groups. Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That's utter nonsense. You make an excelent argument why this list should be deleted; the aim is clearly to try to get pseudoscientific theories such as creationism into the same category as non-mainstream theories such as, say, Modified Newtonian dynamics and oppose any kind of lists to which you can only add theories like creationism but not Modified Newtonian dynamics. For the record, mainstream scientists may not believe that Modified Newtonian dynamics is correct, most don't work on it (if they do they try to disprove it). But they don't label it as nonsense. Articles written on such theories are not rejected out of hand. So, clearly there is a huge difference between pseudoscientific theories and theories one could label as non-mainstream.


 * The labeling "pseudoscientific" for creationism may be pejorative for the creationists, but to put creationism and similar nonsensical theories in the same list as some non-mainstream theories is pejorative for scientists. Just imagine that you work on Modified Newtonian dynamics and that your neighbor does a google search to find out more about what you work on. He will find this theory listed alongside all sorts of nonsensical theories. Count Iblis 20:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If I'm not mistaken, this discussion isn't about the proposed contents but about the subject. I fully agree that clearly there is a huge difference between pseudoscientific theories and theories one could label as non-mainstream. However, it has also been noticed that theories that simply are non-mainstream have (had?) a tendency to be included in the list on pseudo-scientific theories because a list of non-mainstream theories didn't exist. Harald88 21:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * While I think it goes too far to call many of the topics listed in pseudoscience "nonsense" (many of them have a high level of internal consistency) what Iblis says is essentially correct. To use a related but more direct example- only a small fraction of biologists still think that birds are not descended from dinosaurs, but the opinion is very much not pseudoscience. However, denying common descent is. It would be terribly offensive and unencyclopedic to categorize them in the same way at all. JoshuaZ 20:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. Too vague (potential for overpopulation) and shouldn't redirect. List of pseudoscientific theories has potential if it's adequately sourced (which of now it isn't) and annotated.  thanks, Jim Butler(talk) 05:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and expand - already a pointer List of alternative, speculative and disputed theories erroneously points to List of pseudoscientific theories! As long as there are lists like list of pseudoscientific theories (which title I propose to change because it implies an NPOV violation) and the one in Superseded scientific theory, we need more category lists to correctly categorize theories that are in disgrace. But at the same time, either such categories should be deleted or the corresponding lists (merge). Harald88 07:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. wikipediatrix 13:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and maintain as the list page. Much more neutral and accurate than List of pseudoscientific theories. Some of the non-mainstream theories listed on that page do not purport to be scientific theories, so listing them as "pseudoscience" is inaccurate, perjorative and a little silly. DrL 14:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Whether or not the list there needs to have better and more NPOV criteria for inclusion is not relevant to whether or not we should let this POV fork/redirect stand. JoshuaZ 14:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That's right except for one thing: it's certainly not a POV fork, but a (rather misdirected) attempt to neutralise an unmistakable POV title. Because of that as well as being a POV fork of Category:Pseudoscience (see recent Talk!), I have in mind to propose either the cat or the List of pseudoscientific theories for deletion. Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete Page was created in a campaign of POV-pushing by Arturo 7 when he moved List of pseudoscientific theories here. Leaving it up would be giving in to his efforts. ---DrLeebot 14:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * In fact that's erroneous, as I made clear above: originally the "pseudoscience"list was called different names, a true consensus was never reached, and the change of name to List of pseudoscientific theories has caused a mispointing of List of alternative, speculative and disputed theories to that list instead of this proposed list. As this title is NPOV, it may more rightly be claimed that deleting this proposed list "would be giving in to the efforts of POV pushers". Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Please do your research before spouting off claims. This is not a proposed list, this is a relic of a failed move. See here and here. Yes, it originally was at "List of alternative, speculative, and disputed theories," but that was a conceit to NPOV which opened the door to too many legitimate theories (What theory isn't disputed by at least one person?). The list was moved here to match the original intent of the list.
 * As for pseudoscience being used as a pejorative; that's completely irrelevent (besides, it's even mentioned in the official policies with this word. However, there is a good point in that proponents of these theories generally contest the label, so I'm going to recommend a page move to List of theories commonly considered pseudoscientific. ---DrLeebot 13:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Please don't confuse the word pseudoscience and articles about and referring to pseudoscience with accusations of pseudoscience. Anyway, that's not the question here. It's beyond discussion that "non-mainstream" isn't the same as "pseudoscience", and that in principle the contents of the list should differ. Harald88 21:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment - Why was this brought here rather than Redirects for deletion? The page has no content and no history, being merely the resulting redirect from a failed page move. -- nae'blis 16:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point (I also didn't know the existence of it!). Harald88 19:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete, which is to say I support the deletion, whatever the correct forum for this is (I din't know there were special debates for redirects either). In any case non-mainstream =/= peudoscience, and we should aviod confusion here. -MrFizyx 23:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, should be at RFD anyway but while we're here might as well get rid of it, as pseudoscientific and non-mainstream are not the same thing at all. Things which are pseudoscientific are almost always currently non-mainstream, but may have once been mainstream, and things which are not mainstream are not necessarily pseudoscientific (some are just wrong, for example, and some are just unpopular). They are very different designations (one is sociological, the other is epistemological). --Fastfission 23:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 11:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep and move List of pseudoscientific theories to List of non-mainstream theories. The list currently at List of pseudoscientific theories was created in 2003 and for most of its history resided at List of alternative, speculative and disputed theories, where it explicitly included "respectable theories that are simply the minority view"&mdash;non-mainstream theories that are not pseudoscientific.  It was moved to List of pseudoscientific theories last month by Count Iblis, who has now nominated for deletion List of non-mainstream theories, a redirect created during a subsequent dispute over whether the list should be moved to that location.  As Harald88 points out, "pseudoscientific" is much more controversial than "non-mainstream", because (1) it is a pejorative term, and (2) alternative theorists often admit that their theories are non-mainstream, but fiercely deny that they are pseudoscientific.  If pseudoscientific theories are to be separated from other non-mainstream theories, either at List of pseudoscientific theories or through sectioning at List of non-mainstream theories, the classification of each entry will have to be very carefully justified by reliable sources, something the current list wholly lacks. Tim Smith 11:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have quite a lot of sympathy for this POV... the current list includes quite a few theories that are simply obsolete (e.g. le Sage gravity) and shouldn't be listed as pseudo. How about List of alternative, speculative, obsolete or disputed theories? William M. Connolley 12:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * William, there already exists a list of obsolete theories. But a list of alternative or speculative theories is very difficult, because what are the criterea? This is inherently POV. What is bound to happen is that the list will consist of not so popular theories of which a wiki page happens to exist. Of course in certain cases it's clear that a theory is "alternative", take e.g. various theories that assume that humans are not responsible for global warming. And even in this case, how many revert wars were there about the "small minority " sentence :) Count Iblis 12:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The current list also contains some theories that are completely incomprehensible, so then maybe we should move it to List of alternative, speculative, obsolete, disputed, or incomprehensible theories. And what about the theories it includes that are just weird? We could go on like this forever. Le Sage gravity shouldn't be included and should be removed if no one advocates it now, but if advocates are still around then it does qualify as pseudoscience. ---DrLeebot 13:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply to Tim Smith: Tim Smith wrote: As Harald88 points out, "pseudoscientific" is much more controversial than "non-mainstream", because (1) it is a pejorative term, and (2) alternative theorists often admit that their theories are non-mainstream, but fiercely deny that they are pseudoscientific.


 * "pseudoscientific" is not more controversial from a reasonable neutral point of view at all. There are clear criterea unlike in the case of "non-mainstream". We cannot appease the pseudoscientists for opposing the the very reasonable majority view (based on objective criterea) that their theory is pseudoocientific just because they don't like it. Any list of "non-mainstream" theories is highly problematic because there are no unambiguous criterea at all. The original list before I renamed it had this problem. What happened was that the list contained almost exclusively pseudoscientific theories. That meant that you could not add theories that were "simply the minority view", because that would be offensive to the people working on that theory. Note that even if you split thelist in two parts on the same page, google's indexing methods will cause respectable theories on the list to be associated with the label "pseudocience". Count Iblis 12:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep but properly sort. There are really three types of theories that would fit on such a list.  Modified Newtonian dynamics as referenced above is a proposed theory that most physicists probably believe is a possibility, though they may not support it or work on it.  Few would consider it impossible or nonsense.  On the other hand, the Electric Universe theory (which among other things claims that black holes don't exist) is probably in the second category: most mainstream physicists believe that it is probably BS, and those who support it are generally not accepted as part of the mainstream.  However, a supporter of Modified Newtonian dynamics would not find himself ostricized in the community because MOND is accepted as a possibility, and isn't pseudoscience.  Then, of course, there is the third category, the category of theories that are all-and-out pseudoscience and have no actual scientific backing. If the list can be properly titled and sorted, this would be quite useful. &mdash;   Da rk Sh ik ar i   talk /contribs  13:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Question Why isn't this in Redirects for Discussion? The discussion here seems to be about the List of pseudoscientific theories article (which is protected so can't be nominated for deletion yet) rather than about the article this AfD links to. I get the feeling the nominator chose to nominate the redirect because the page he wanted to delete was protected. Shouldn't an admin close this discussion, then the relevant article can be unprotected and nominated? Lurker  talk 13:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Reply No, this should be at redirects because this was a result of an attempted POV move by Arturo 7 and was then moved back. That is the sole reason for the existence of this redirect at current. The nominator didn't know that there was a separate page for RfD but we should be able to deal with it here given how long this has gone on. JoshuaZ 13:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete Non-mainstream does not mean pseudoscientific or vice versa. There are scientific theories that aren't mainstream, just as there are mainstream theories that aren't scientific WilyD 13:16, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. What constitutes "mainstream" is purely subjective. wikipediatrix 13:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sure this is a simple mistake, but you've already voted. ---DrLeebot 16:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oops! No wonder I felt a creeping twinge of Deja vu! wikipediatrix 18:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete how mainstream is mainstream? Enough said. Just zis Guy you know? 15:16, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete...or an attempt by mainstream theorists to declare non-mainstream theorists pseudoscientists. Cut and dried. Dekimasu 16:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There's a pretty clearcut difference between Pseudoscientific and non-mainstream science that anyone should be able to recognise if they ignore the rhetoric and look at the issue. Some fields are problematic (such as Cryptozoology) because there are both real scientists working outside the mainstream and quacks - I guess. WilyD 02:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete -Doc 18:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete POV fork and strictly limited to POV. Konman72 06:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.