Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sagan standard/archive1

Sagan standard

 * Nominator(s): ~  HAL  333  17:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I recently realized that all of my FAs could be roughly construed as Southern history, so I hope this aphorism by the great and sorely missed Carl Sagan is a pleasant digression. It's pretty brief, so my goal is to have this promoted by November 9, so that it can appear as TFA on Sagan's birthday. ~ HAL  333  17:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Coordinator note
Hi HAL333. So far as the coordinators are concerned, your JFK nom was a solo nomination, as is this one; and an "editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only one article at a time". Given that I anticipate closing the JFK one soon I don't see that I need to be officious and archive this one as out of process, but if you could remember to check in with the coordinators prior to opening a second live nomination in future that would be appreciated. Cheers. for info. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that - it won't happen again. ~ HAL  333  21:12, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Drive-by from UC

 * File:Painting of David Hume.jpg is missing a US-PD tag, though it should be easy enough to add one if we can show that it was "published" before 1923.
 * I was unable to find when it was first unveiled to the public, so I replaced it w/ a portrait that has a PD-US tag. ~ HAL  333  19:44, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * It seems odd that there doesn't really seem to be any section discussing the response to, development of or criticism of Sagan's formulation (contrast for instance Occam's razor and Hitchens's razor. The Deming article cited seems to suggest that at least someone has critiqued the usefulness or limitations of the phrase as commonly understood.
 * After another dive into the literature, I haven't been able to find any texts that do that. ~ HAL  333  23:50, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Deming certainly does: see also from voorts below. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:07, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Might expand to a full review later, perhaps once others have had their say: this is very much not my specialist subject and I'm not sure how useful I can be at this stage. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:25, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
 * , I've expanded on criticism/nuance of the standard. Tell me how it looks. ~ HAL  333  16:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I apologize for the repeat pinging. Is there anything else that needs polishing? But if you don't feel able to support/oppose, no worries. ~ HAL  333  20:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry, I'd missed your first. I haven't been able to give the article enough attention to vote sensibly on it: if I get the opportunity I'll try to change that, but please count me as an "abstain" from ignorance for now. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:55, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

voorts
I have a few comments:
 * The application section only discusses science. Has the concept been applied outside of the (pseudo)sciences? If so, that needs to be discussed to meet the comprehensiveness criterion.
 * It's pretty much exclusively applied to science and the philosophy of science (it is a standard about evidence after all). I did find one paper that discusses it in the context of social media, but I feel that it would be undue weight to mention. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I think additional sources can be consulted and cited. For example, the Deming article cites Goertzel & Goertzel, which seems to include an extended discussion of the standard based on Deming's quotes from it.
 * Tell me how it looks now. I did cite Goertzel & Goertzel although not in great depth, as it seems a fringey. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * The article states "The phrase is commonly used in the context of paranormal and other pseudoscientific claims", but only cites two sources. I think a more comprehensive discussion is needed here.
 * I've expanded it, but I don't else I can add re. the paranormal. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Per 's note, I've found at least one criticism of the standard in this article. Perhaps take another look at articles citing some of the sources you've used (especially the Deming article).
 * "The standard has been described as being "at the heart of the scientific method" and is regarded as encapsulating the basic principles of scientific skepticism." - Since there's a quote, this requires an inline citation. Alternatively, paraphrase.
 * If the quote is cited later, is that inline citation still needed? ~ HAL  333  16:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe it is required per MINREF. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:57, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Alright - I paraphrased it. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * "It is also used in scientific literature when challenging research findings and proposals, such as during criticism of a newly asserted species of Amazonian tapir, stellar spectroscopy results, or public health data." "during criticism" is an awkward formulation. "Public health data" is also vague.
 * I've reworded and added better examples imo. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * "A routinized form of this ..." It's unclear what the "this" being referred to is. Additionally, the paragraph containing that sentence could be rewritten ONEDOWN; throwing out terms like "null hypothesis" and "Bayesian priors" is a bit inaccessible for people who don't already know what those are.
 * I'm not sure how I could better explain this without it becoming very wordy and undue. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * "However, Sagan ..." It's not clear to me why this should begin with "However". I don't see a contrast with the last paragraph.
 * Removed. ~ HAL  333  16:50, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * "Two 1978 articles quote physicist Philip Abelson—then the editor of Science—using the same phrasing as Truzzi." This is an incomplete sentence.
 * I have a subject and verb: how is it incomplete? ~ HAL  333  16:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Upon rereading, it's not incomplete; I think I was thrown off by the word "using". How about an edit for clarity: "In two 1978 articles, Philip Abelsonthen the editor of Sciencewas quoted using the same phrasing as Truzzi." voorts (talk/contributions) 21:55, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not a huge fan of the passive voice. I change "quote" to "quoted" to make it more clear that it's a verb, which I think is probably the main source of confusion. Tell if if that works. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Titles of works in references list need to be consistently capitalized per MOS:CONFORMTITLE.
 * Good catch. Done. ~ HAL  333  16:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 02:36, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * All addressed, unless otherwise noted. ~ HAL  333  19:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * A few more notes:
 * I think "Analysis" should be its own heading and should be retitled "Analysis and criticism".
 * Done. ~ HAL  333  14:56, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Shiffrin did not make the claim about confirmation bias attributed to him in the article. The paper cited is a discussion paper, and the person who made that claim is Suyog Chandramouli.
 * I don't state that Shiffrin made that claim, but I can see how it's unclear. I orginally attributed it to Chandramouli, but it was bit too choppy: "X said this. Y said that. Z said that." I've rearranged it. Tell me if it's any clearer. ~ HAL  333  14:56, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It's still a little unclear to me. For example, the paragraph begins,, and then the next sentence does not attribute to a different author, making it seem as if that's still Deming's point. I know the X said this, Y said that can be a bit choppy, but I think more precision is still needed. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:18, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Tweaked. ~ HAL  333  22:28, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Chandramouli also provides some interesting views on solutions to the problem posed by the Sagan standard, including "append[ing] to publications reviewers' thoughts on the plausibility of the purported claims based on current theories and their actual reasons for accepting submissions"; allowing for postpublication peer review; and allowing for versioning of articles to update analyses. Those might fit into the article somewhere.
 * Added. ~ HAL  333  15:21, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There are also a few more perspectives in that discussion article, and some of those should be included in the article as well, in particular, Mary Murphy's views on gender/racial bias in applying ECREE (p. 272).
 * Added. ~ HAL  333  15:02, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Have you searched through the writings of the authors in the discussion article to see if they've written more on the Sagan standard? Also, do the references cited in that article contain any additional information on the Sagan standard?
 * – See MOS:WEASEL.
 * Fixed. ~ HAL  333  15:14, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The cite for Evidence for Psi should use the chapter parameters in.
 * I'm not sure abt that... ~ HAL  333  15:14, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It's an edited collection, so it should be attributed to the specific author of that chapter, rather than the editors of the collection. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:18, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. Done. ~ HAL  333  22:35, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Found another source that you might want to take a look at and incorporate.
 * voorts (talk/contributions) 20:24, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * This article should definitely be cited: ][[User:Voorts|voorts] (talk/contributions) 21:06, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if there's any new info I can get from Pigliucci. ~ HAL  333  16:07, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi HAL333, have you finished responding to Voorts' comments? If so, could you pig them? Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:54, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
 * , comments addressed unless otherwise noted. I've gone through JSTOR and Google Scholar, with no luck. ~ HAL  333  16:09, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * A couple of responses above. Also, even if there's nothing new from Pigliucci, I recommend citing him in places where he supports other claims already made in the article for the sake of ensuring that readers can see that the articles exist. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:18, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Pigliucci has been incorporated — tell me if there's anything else that needs attention. Thanks, ~ HAL  333  22:43, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks good. I will wait for you to address @Shapeyness' comments below regarding incorporating the use of the standard in religious contexts, since that goes to some of my concerns regarding comprehensiveness. Please ping me when you've addressed that. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:51, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I addressed Shapeyness' comments as best I could. ~ HAL  333  23:35, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, @HAL333, for addressing those concerns. I support the nomination. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:18, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated. ~ HAL  333  17:31, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

GWL
Hey there, I have just an hour on my computer left, so this is a good choice to review! See invisible comments for section division. I also notice there's some comments on the comprehensiveness and writing above, so I'll support this nom once my comments are resolved + once I feel the comments above are resolved too. Also if you don't mind, I have an ongoing film PR.  Gerald WL  10:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Support -- I was halting my response due to the oppose below, but after it has now been resolved, I think I'm ready to sp this article. Nice stuff!  Gerald WL  04:13, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Comments Oppose from RoySmith

 * I'm going to be bold and suggest this fails WP:NOTNEO. There is no doubt that Sagan wrote the "extraordinary claims" statement, but I'm not finding any WP:RS to call that the "Sagan standard".  I'm finding lots of blogs and what look like wikipedia mirrors.  I see a preprint of a paper that refers to "Sagan's dictum", but that's about it.  The article compares this to Occam's razor.  By contrast, when I searched for Occam's razor, I quickly found plenty of WP:RS       I see this exact point was brought up at AfD a few years ago; the fact that it survived with No Consensus only reinforces my generally low opinion of AfD; everybody who !voted to keep agreed that the title was unsustainable, and most of the rest of the !votes were to redirect or merge into the parent Carl Sagan article, suggesting this has no stand-alone notability.  I don't see anything in WP:FACR which says an article has to pass WP:N, but I assume that's taken as given.  RoySmith (talk) 20:44, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The article cites several journal articles that discuss Sagan's maxim in depth. You might be right that it's never been called the "Sagan standard", but it's quite obviously a notable concept in the philosophy of science. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:45, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to imply that it's not an important concept. It clearly is.  But, making up a name for it is WP:NEO, and framing the entire article as "Carl Sagan said this (and, oh, by the way, here's all these other people who said it before him)" is WP:UNDUE. RoySmith (talk) 22:11, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, Google scholar shows several results for "Sagan standard": . voorts (talk/contributions) 22:17, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The earliest paper I see in the first page of results from that search is 2018 which post-dates the existence of our article. Adding a date limit of 1900-1917 1900-2017 (our first revision is November 2016) to your search comes up with five hits; four are clearly false positives, and one is a 2018 review of a 2016 paper.  All of this says to me that whatever contemporary uses we're seeing of the term are likely driven by our neologism. RoySmith (talk) 22:56, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then it seems like the chicken's egg has hatched, and what we have here is a chicken. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:21, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * As long as those contemporary uses have a life of their own (that is, they're not simply mirrors of this page), I'm not sure that's a problem: are you saying that Wikipedia should never have an article on a term coined on Wikipedia, however widely that term ends up spreading in the language? We have, for instance, Citation needed, which is openly about a term that has "escaped", as it were, and taken on a life beyond Wikipedia, which is what makes it notable. UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:41, 22 September 2023 (UTC) (Edit: to be clear, "you" is User:RoySmith.  UndercoverClassicist T·C 22:42, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 * This is a valid concern, but it seems to be five or so years too late, and the term has been adopted by RS. Per a paper from this June: "philosophical principles that are widely known as Occam’s razor and the Sagan standard". ~ HAL  333  17:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * RoySmith posted about this in a thread over on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch and I will repeat my refutation of their citogenesis claim here, for posterity.
 * Except that the term clearly existed prior to our article. Here's the use of it in direct relation to the quote it refers to. Another from 2014. Oh, and here's an article from Space.com from 2010. So I'm not sure your claim of citogenesis works out.
 * Therefore, I think the above oppose should be ignored, as it doesn't relate to article content or quality whatsoever. Silver  seren C 01:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I thank for finding these counter-examples, and yes, I do withdraw my opposition.  RoySmith (talk) 02:10, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Spotcheck - pass

 * supported
 * supported
 * supported
 * supported
 * supported
 * supported
 * I don't think this is supported on page 1320. But it is supported on page 1319: "For a claim to qualify as extraordinary there must exist overwhelming empirical data of the exact antithesis. Extraordinary evidence is not a separate category or type of evidence–it is an extraordinarily large number of observations."
 * Fixed. ~ HAL  333  13:54, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * supported
 * supported
 * supported
 * supported
 * supported
 * Supported for most part. I'm not sure that the last phrase about the Bible is supported for all of these authors. It's not essential so it might be best to remove it.
 * Removed. ~ HAL  333  13:56, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Phlsph7 (talk) 12:27, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Other source-related observations

 * In the passage both sentences are covered by the same source. I suggest removing the first mention of [6] since the second one already covers both sentences.
 * Done. ~ HAL  333  14:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The same applies to the following passage:
 * Fixed. ~ HAL  333  14:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * This is listed under books but cited as a journal.
 * Moved. ~ HAL  333  14:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Most journal articles lack identifiers like DOI or ISSN.
 * The titles of the sources are inconsistent concerning their usage of sentence case vs. title case.
 * Done. ~ HAL  333  14:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * ISBNs are inconsistent concerning their usage of hyphens.
 * Standardized. ~ HAL  333  14:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Page ranges should use en dash (–), not the longer em dash (—).
 * Fixed. ~ HAL  333  14:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Phlsph7 (talk) 12:27, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:EARWIG shows no copyright violations (matches are due to quotes).
 * I didn't spot any close paraphrases.


 * , nudge. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:58, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
 * , all addressed. ~ HAL  333  14:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it's looking good so far. For Deming 2016, I readded page 1320 since both pages are required to support the passage in question. I think the only remaining point is about the missing identifiers (like DOI or ISSN) for journal articles. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:55, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * - I was able to add DOIs for all but the two oldest articles. ~ HAL  333  22:25, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Phlsph7, should I take this to be a source review pass as well as a spot check? Gog the Mild (talk) 21:33, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can also take this as a source review pass. I didn't check the reliability of the sources before but I had a look now and I didn't spot any problems. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

SC - Support

 * Application
 * "The Sagan standard,[3][4][5]": these three sources are currently supporting three words, so I'm not sure what they are doing. Maybe move to the end?
 * "[3][4][5]": to avoid the citation overkill, it may be worth thinking about cite bundling to reduce the series of numbers?
 * You've not actually introduced us to what the standard is within the body. It may be worth a very quick introduction to what it is, and drop the text in the quotebox into a blockquote. (I didn't read the quote on my first readthrough, but it may just be me that's odd in not doing so.

If you're going to quote a well-published writer, then it's probably best to do it from as close to the original as possible, and not from someone who changes the spelling! Hume's writing uses "marvellous", not "marvelous"
 * Origin

Hope these help. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 11:50, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It did — thanks. ~ HAL  333  14:09, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Support. Nice article. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 14:20, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Shapeyness
Sources are surprisingly hard to find on this given its importance to scientific skepticism, but I think this article is pretty comprehensive. One thing that I think the article could give some space to that it doesn't currently is the use of the phrase in arguments against miracles or the existence of God. A few sources that you could use on this: Another more general source you might find useful is this chapter in Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology. Apart from that, the only comment I have is that is supported by primary sources, are there any secondary sources that discuss the role of the standard in relation to scientific claims that could be used instead? Shapeyness (talk) 22:17, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith (starting on page 273) - Craig's arguments are also discussed by Raphael Lataster here and in a Q&A post by Craig here
 * Robert Larmer's The Legitimacy of Miracle (starting on page 125)
 * Peter S. William's Getting at Jesus (starting on page 48)
 * , I appreciate the comments. I have incorporated Larmer and Craig's claims, however, William's seemed especially fringey. Despite having online accounts through two separate universities, I couldn't access the Lataster paper unfortunately. I had also previously come across the Astrobiology book, but again I can't access it (it's not on the Internet Archive either). What's interesting is that Sagan never actually used the standard in the context of religion: if he had, that aspect would likely be much more prominent in the literature. And, unfortunately, I haven't found a secondary sources that gives concrete examples of scientific applications. Tell me if anything else needs attention. ~ HAL  333  23:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I don't think there is anything else that needs attention. I've added the Astrobiology source to cite , hopefully that is ok! There are some other details from the chapter that could be used, but many of the points are covered in the article already. Therefore, all my comments have now been addressed, so I support the nomination. Shapeyness (talk) 19:53, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Image review - pass
All images are appropriately licenced, positioned, captioned and alt texted. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:48, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Drive-by comments

 * Could we have the page range for Goertzel & Goertzel,.
 * Done.


 * Is there a reason for this book not being in alphabetical order?
 * In the actual code, the editor (Broderick) precedes Goertzel. Fixed. ~ HAL  333  00:43, 29 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Add the ISBN to McMahon.
 * Done.


 * Truzzi: what makes Zetetic Scholar a high quality reliable source? It appears to be effectively self published.
 * Yes, he founded the Scholar, but it eventually became published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. I don't think it's necessarily a low quality RS, maybe low-impact, but not low quality. ~ HAL  333  01:19, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Gog the Mild (talk) 11:52, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * , all addressed or otherwise responded to. Tell me if anything else needs polishing. ~ HAL  333  01:19, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Gog the Mild (talk) 19:26, 29 October 2023 (UTC)