Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 45

GodBlessYou2
I just had to dramatically change or revert a number of this user's edits.


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I'm afraid there is little regard for WP:FRINGE or other policies dealing with the promotion of pseudoscience and creationism. We may need to ask for arbitration enforcement if this behavior doesn't stop.

jps (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * JPS, I realize you have a POV that you want to see reflected in the above articles, but these articles are precisely about issues around which there is controversy and lack of consensus. Your opinion that they are "fringe" does not mean that they are not notable issues and that the sources cited are not reliable.  The threat of "arbitration enforcement" is also out of place.


 * Regarding the Fermi paradox, Bernard Haisch is a clearly a notable author and astrophysicist. While I point to a particular article that he has self published See WP:SPS: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I'm sure that others hold the same opinion and it is likely that a secondary source could be found, but that's not necessary and I don't have the time to pursue it.  Instead of reducing material in the article, your efforts would be better spent adding a source in place of the Haisch post if you feel it is a better source.  Actually, it's my understanding that he does not believe in UFO's but is, in this article, simply playing devil's advocate regarding why the claims of UFO sightings cannot be completely ruled out by the Fermi Paradox.


 * Regarding the Fine-tuned_Universe edit, I think it very rude of you to accuse me of "Creationist POV-pushing" simply because I add a cite to Haisch's "The Purpose-Guided Universe: Believing in Einstein, Darwin, and God," a book by a highly qualified astrophysist who, very pertinently, wrote his book to address the fine-tuned universe issue in a way that denies creationism yet argues for the existence of God. FYI, perhaps you disagree, but I consider the accusation of "creationism" to imply a belief in a literal interpretation of the Genesis and six day creation myth.  I also think it's rude to call someone a creationist unless they describe themselves that way.


 * Regarding the God of the gaps edit you reverted, I did not even introduce new sources. I simply fixed two incomplete citations then corrected the sentences citing these sources to make them actually reflect what the sources were saying. If you believe I did not correctly summarize these sources, fix my summary, but do not revert to the badly summarized content.  Don't you have something constructive to contribute?  Why are you following me around to undue my contributions?  Please  assume good faith and try to work with other editors to build up articles rather than trim them down to some POV which best suits you. You are not the editor-in-chief or final arbiter of reliable sources. -GodBlessYou2 (talk) 19:22, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The Haisch source is fringey as fringe gets. SPS only applies if he were discussing his scientific work that had previously been published in a reliable third-party publication.  Here he's giving an opinion on something that has nothing to do with his prior published scientific work, or scientific work at all for that matter.  And the book you cite pretty much only shows up on creationist or fringe websites.  I'm also not sure what you added it in to cite.  Also, I have to note, we don't "build up" articles for the sake of doing it.  They'd get prohibitively long and be filled with all types of undue cruft.  Indeed, the opposite is true.  Wikipedia has a POV and that's the POV expressed by mainstream reliable sources. Capeo (talk) 19:49, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The "controversy" and "lack of consensus" you are claiming exist are themselves WP:FRINGE claims that are promulgated, mostly, by religious believers, ufologists, and pseudoscientists. Your edits seek to promote these fringe viewpoints as being equally footed (e.g. your appeal to Haisch as a "highly qualified astrophysist". Be aware that we are intimately familiar with Haisch and his claims at this website: Talk:Bernard Haisch). Trying to claim some level of mainstream acceptance for these ideas is exactly the problem with your edits. jps (talk) 19:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I reverted a contribution https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Creation%E2%80%93evolution_controversy&diff=639953971&oldid=639951952 by this editor that should be taken into account if discretionary sanctions are on the menu. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 21:26, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * They used Expelled as a factual source? Yeah, not good. Capeo (talk) 22:01, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The bigger problem was that he consumed a great deal of editor time at Talk:Creation-evolution controversy, had a major case of WP:IDHT, and appears to be incapable or unwilling to understand, never mind abide by our policies because of their zealous ideological stance. If he/she is continuing his disruptive behavior on other articles, then it's clear that WP:NOTHERE and WP:CIR apply. Maybe a discretionary indef would save both us and him/her a world of anguish. I just don't see a ray of hope here based on their interactions with other editors at the talk page on Creation-evolution controversy. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:47, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I see. I wasn't aware there was prior history involved. I only came to notice their recent edits from checking out the FTN yesterday. Maybe a creationism/evolution TB might do the trick? Capeo (talk) 23:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


 * That would be a good start. It's worth considering. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:27, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The references recently added to Stephen Barr look rather dodgy and coatracky. Certainly, if a scientist has notable fringe views, these should be discussed, sourced to independent sources with weight as appropriate.  But also the subject's scientific work should remain the focus of the article.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 00:17, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Honestly I don't even see how Barr meets any notability claims. He hasn't published a significant scientific paper since the 80s and his work amounted to nothing.  Today searches bring up nothing but religious and fringe websites at best where he gives an interview.  His books are limited print with no notable reviews.  And I know Google hits aren't a good argument for inclusion but that's when we're debating tens of thousands of hits.  Barr doesn't even seem to have a single page to himself before random Stephen Barrs start popping up completely unrelated to the subject of the article.  Is this person notable? Capeo (talk) 00:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Barr's work on grand unified models is extremely well-known. He passes WP:PROF, with 30 scientific papers cited more than one hundred times on Google scholar, and WP:PROF as a fellow of the American Physical Society.  So he is notable as an academic.  I don't know what the appropriate weight is to assign his personal views on religion, but I suspect it is not much.  In particular, I object most strongly to the recently-added "references" at the article.  They portray the subject in a false light, as a crackpot, and arguably violate WP:BLP and other guidelines.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 12:26, 7 January 2015 (UTC)


 * If the criteria is that lax than I guess it is what it is. But given that criteria there should tens of thousands of articles on just about anyone who has published.  #3 is particularly lax.  Here's the list of fellows added to the APS just in 2014: http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm


 * Pick anyone on that list and plug them into google scholar. Out five I tried four of them were cited more than Barr though they, rightfully I'd say, don't have articles here.  I'm having a hard time finding a paper of his that has been cited in the last 20 years and most cites are much, much older than that.  As for his personal views on religion?  Today at least, that's by far what he's best know for.  He's written a book on the subject, given interviews and even has a substantial section about it on the front page of his personal website.  I'd think those views should get at least some weight in his article. Capeo (talk) 18:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Notability isn't temporary. I'm sure you'd have a tough time finding articles authored by Albert Einstein in the last 20 years too :-)  But there is no serious debate that he passes the guideline for scientists.  He has written an impressive number of papers cited in the hundreds.  Presumably, that is a high citation area, but even so he clearly passes C1.  However, unless he is specifically notable for his views on religion, the article's very existence relies on WP:PROF, so it seems to me that it would be more in keeping with that guideline to emphasize his role as a scientist rather than a Christian apologist.  But I don't really know what the relevant guideline is for such things.  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

And now, forum shopping. Ugh. jps (talk) 15:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And the refusal to accept a consensus clearly and unambiguously established in the recent RfC at at Talk:Creation–evolution controversy continues.  AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay. Enough is enough. Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. jps (talk) 17:32, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * More forum shopping ... the guy simply WP:DONTGETIT and won't drop the WP:STICK. WegianWarrior (talk) 12:28, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Really wish you hadn't done that -- this had someone politely (if a bit much) going up dispute resolution processes to RFC and instead of getting external input to the question it aborted into rewarding the approach of snarking responses about toilets and holocaust and then banning the poster.  Winds up nothing produced at the article or RFC conduct that could be held up as admirable.   Now seems a shameful #fail at WP:RFC, WP:CENSOR, WP:SHOOT,  and effectively exemption for some on WP:POLITE, WP:SOAPBOX, and WP:OUTOFSCOPE.  I will see what I can do.   Markbassett (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Soft tissue creationism
It seems there are some creationists who think that soft-tissue preservation is their ace in the hole for supporting Young-Earth creationism. I just did this revert because it seems to me that since Ken Ham has supported a huge number of peculiar reinterpretations of mainstream ideas highlighting just soft-tissue is the bugbear WP:COATRACK of this particular creationist editor. YMMV.

jps (talk) 15:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Note also this section. jps (talk) 15:45, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The better solution is to simply avoid letting that section turn into Creationism arguments/debates by proxy. As a BLP, Ham is the article's focus, hence it is sufficient to say "Ham believes X" in a non-argumentative fashion, give the cites that support it, and not make it the issue whether or not X is true.  I'll make an edit to remove that sentence accordingly, then we'll see if editors insist on forcing the debate back in.  Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 16:21, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Nice change jps. Azurecitizen, it is correct that it would still sound like a coatrack as it is still going to provide extra push it doesn't deserve. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, AzureCitizen. There's a little pushback, but I'm not convinced we have any authoritative secondary sources which describe precisely how Ken Ham does his thing. Perhaps Ronald Numbers' book could work, but I don't think he goes into enough detail. There's also the interesting story of how AiG and CMI split over personality differences. Well... maybe the sleeping dogs can be let lying. jps (talk) 14:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

2007 Alderney UFO sighting
So this is an interesting article in part because there is absolutely no discussion of the two possible alternatives: high altitude weather balloons on the horizon or lenticular clouds. The flight path's orientation in roughly the direction of the sun is a telling one. However, the dearth of credulous sources about this case makes me wonder how to edit it. Help?

jps (talk) 15:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Rex 84
The only sources I can find for this are in fringe sources concerned that the government out to control us. Are there any reliable sources that discuss it? Thoughts? Thanks! - Location (talk) 01:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would very much support an AfD on this. BlueSalix (talk) 13:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * We discussed this some years back to no particular conclusion. Mangoe (talk) 17:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Topic-ban proposal for Robert Walker
I have proposed a topic-ban at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, after re-opening the debate. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   13:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory
Hi everyone. There has been quite a bit of activity at the Conspiracy theory entry recently, all from one editor. I reverted some stuff as it was a big addition and asked in an edit summary to take it to talk to no avail. I am not sure about the material, so I would appreciate a few eyes on. Thanks! Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Book advocating fringe theory
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I wonder if somebody from here can provide a comment at Talk:The Lost River. It is a book that advocates a fringe theory (among other things). But the editor that created the article insists that we should follow the format of articles for books, which means that the fringe theory aspect goes without mention. Kautilya3 (talk) 14:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no fringe theory, only difference between datings, one is majorly accepted and other is accepted by some. They are written as the content of book. I had also mistaken once like JJ but Indoscope is probably correct. Bladesmulti (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I dropped a line at the discussion. If there is a consensus the ideas being discussed are not Fringe then the applicable guidelines would probably be from the appropriate project. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:56, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If reliable, mainstream sources have directly addressed the book's content, then by all means they should be considered. (If none has, then it's worth asking if the topic is notable.) If it's just a matter of not presenting a fringe idea as if it's mainstream, then there needs to be some agreement that the topic is fringe. Guettarda (talk) 16:02, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree and the idea is represented as the idea of author, not mainstream. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:09, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a RfC going at the moment on Talk:Indigenous Aryans to which this topic belongs. The book is totally ignored in mainstream scholarship; the main thesis is disregarded in mainstream scholarship.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   16:12, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The entire article looks like a COATRACK, including the way the reviews are being presented. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:31, 30 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It is worth considering the wider implications of the question, namely what to do when certain books with "interesting" ideas receive ample verifiable treatment in fringe circles (e.g. new age groups, political groups, conspiracy theorists etc.) but are ignored by mainstream scholars. It seems to be OR then to add mention of the fact that any viewpoints in them are not widely accepted and contradict the scientific consensus, but on the other hand letting fringe ideas stand without critique seems contrary to the spirit of WP:NPOV. Imagine for example that someone publishes a book on his theory that the moon is made of green cheese which gains a lot of attention in New Age circles online and therefore passes the GNG, but if astronomers do not review the book or otherwise mention it, then technically the article cannot mention the fact that most astronomers consider the moon not to be made of green cheese because adding it would be OR. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:39, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * An interesting question. My approach would likely be to send it to AfD. NEW AGE only reviews would probably not be enough to pass GNG as they would be doubtfully RS. Although my own approach to IAR is that it should be (with apologies to one of our former presidents) "safe legal and rare," I would not hesitate to invoke it in a really egregious case not explicitly covered by guidelines. Guidelines should not trump commonsense. This article however clearly fails multiple guidelines in its current form. Even the reviews are being used as a COATRACK. I am seriously thinking it might be best to just stub the article pending a completely NPOV rewrite.-Ad Orientem (talk) 16:57, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It was redirected or merged to the page of its author before, maybe we can do that again. Bladesmulti (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah that seems like a good idea. There is a tradition for redirecting fringe books to their authors or to the articles about the fringe view, based I think in WP:UNDUE, though I am not sure how that policy applies to stand alone articles.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think such an article would likely survive an AfD since "significant second hand coverage" does not require sources to be scholarly or reliable in an academic sense, but only reliable for the claim given (i.e. Newagers like it). For example if Oprah or some other celebrity says she likes it that is likely to generate enough second hand coverage to make it easily survive an AfD. The whole question is a swamp - we currently have many articles on books where the only supporting sources for notability are negative reviews telling how terrible and wrong the book is.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This article does not demonstrate that the book has had more than a handful of reviews in obscure publications. Frankly, we could have a stand alone article on virtually any book if this level of response is considered to be adequate. Paul B (talk) 17:15, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Some suggestions for your watchlists about alleged early flying machines
If you don't already have them, Vimana, Vaimanika Shastra, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade and Early flying machines - and the article being pushed as a see also link to these, Quimbaya artifacts (with fringe websites added as references to the link when added). Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 11:54, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Another HAARP edit, but not about HAARP
I reverted a HAARP edit diff sanitizing the rep of on Deborah Dupre. We don't have an article on her that I can see; I'm wondering whether we can just lose the whole passage. Mangoe (talk) 16:37, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You have a good point; probably better to remove her. This edit also changed the contents of a quote. bobrayner (talk) 17:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Acupuncture
Last year the text was shortened from the lede.

Now, this year the text from the body and lede were drastically shortened. I think it was shortened too much for the lede. If the lede is shortened it could say "Nature described TCM as fraught with pseudoscience, and said that a possible reason why it hasn't delivered many cures is that the majority its treatments have no logical mechanism of action." For the body I don't see a logical explanation on the talk page why it was drastically shortened. I don't understand how this bold edit improves the page. See Talk:Acupuncture. QuackGuru ( talk ) 02:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Don't mis-lede editors when you're trying to canvass. That source isn't talking about acupuncture at all (it's about drug discovery from herbs), so it's kind of ridiculous to have it in the lede. I mentioned this both in my ES and at talk.  Read either; I think that criticism of acupuncture's prescientific "mechanism" is obviously fine, when we use proper sources.
 * Additionally, I'm reading the source differently than you, as did a number of editors in the RfC that you forgot to mention, and whose result you've had so much trouble accepting. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 09:29, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the source isn't talking about acupuncture at all. The particular sentence being referenced is referencing TCM as a whole, not just herbology. jps (talk) 18:02, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I note that most independent journalists and scholars who have looked carefully at acupuncture claims have found pseudoscience to be a feature of the subject:, , , , , , , , etc., etc., etc. Honing to a single source is silly. There are hundreds if not thousands of sources written by MDs, journalists, scientists, researchers, and experts in CAM (Ernst, for example), who can confirm the characteristic pseudoscience in acupuncture argumentation. jps (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course there are lots of such sources! And I agree, why hone to one.  That's why I'm saying this editorial, being about herbs, is a poor choice for acupuncture (especially in the lede!).  I'm fine with keeping the wording (left side of diff ) at the TCM article, because it's a properly-weighted source that supports the claim.  But we should use better, germaine sources at acupuncture (cf. bottom of diff ).
 * The thing is -- and others who have edited with QuackGuru may have noticed this -- he doesn't like paraphrasing and summarizing. He tends to argue, tenaciously, that it's OR and SYN. So he pushes for sources whose "letter" aligns with his wishes even when their "spirit" -- the context -- doesn't that align with his wishes despite the fact that when read in context they fail to support the claim.  (A noteworthy example here).  --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 22:24, 29 January 2015 (UTC) strike, improve wording 23:31, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So what do you think of the sources I just linked, Middle 8? How would you summarize them? Write a summary and we'll see if we can agree. jps (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'll be happy to have a look. To save me a little time, do any of these criticize the "qi mechanism" as implausible, and if so which? --Middle 8 (contribs • COI) 23:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I think they all do, though some only by implication. jps (talk) 01:36, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Jeff Lindsay (engineer)
New editor making this look like even more of a promotion piece than it was. (Linday's the LDS guy that was discussed at WP:RSN where it was agreed he wasn't a reliable source - I doubt that he would meet notability if it weren't for his LDS stuff). Dougweller (talk) 12:13, 31 January 2015 (UTC)


 * More of a wp:SPA than a 'new editor', but this is almost the only page they have edited. Their first edit was to 'Lindsay' in 2006, and 30 Jan. 2015 the first one after a 5.5 year wiki-break! --220  of  Borg 10:24, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * • I have welcomed the editor, and dropped a template notice inviting them here to discuss. --220  of  Borg 10:35, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Black Eyed Children
Rotating IP edit-warring and deleting references that support a non-fringe view of the topic as "misleading sources". - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:10, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This looks like POV pushing to the point of being disruptive. I suggest page protection. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:47, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Dallas Buyers Club
This has the obvious issues - a highly critically-acclaimed film, but with a crank message at its core, it makes for a delicate balancing act that the article currently misses by a mile in favour of the film. Don't think for a second it's intentional. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Could you please expand your above comment a bit and give us a more specific idea of what your concern is and how it relates to the Fringe Theories Board? Thanks... -Ad Orientem (talk) 07:00, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * For those who don't know, the film centres around the idea that AIDS treatments (specifically AZT) don't work, and that using a quack medical treatment recommended by a Mexican "doctor" will work out better. It involves a fellow who was importing this peptide thing into Dallas and distributing it, while people are supposedly being killed by AZT.
 * As you can imagine, having a highly critically-acclaimed film, multiply Academy Award winning, and so on, which is basically an attack on medical science needs some care.
 * The care is not, at present, taken. Adam Cuerden (talk) 08:03, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This may be a good source for helping address any fringe/neutrality issues. Alexbrn talk 08:20, 31 January 2015 (UTC)


 * When I was watching the film that was all that I was thinking. While it was an entertaining and compelling movie, he wasn't helping people, he was taking people off AZT and onto unproven fringe medications. Through the movie I was thinking of Steve Jobs getting coffee enemas and healing crystals instead of his chemotherapy. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:53, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Original question
Should we regard Indo-Aryan Migration theory (IAMt) as a historical fact? In terms of making references to it, or using the hypothesis as the actuality for generalizing the historical events.

Wikipedia:FRINGE says "Peer review is an important feature of reliable sources that discuss scientific, historical or other academic ideas, but it is not the same as acceptance by the scientific community. It is important that original hypotheses that have gone through peer review do not get presented in Wikipedia as representing scientific consensus or fact."

In recent months, a lot of content from the main page of the hypothesis has been forked into pages like Hinduism, Vedic Period, Historical Vedic Religion by a particular user, previously they had not even mentioned. While it had received acceptance as a possibility, it is heavily debated and remains controversial as the proposed similarities of various cultures are based on linguistics and these issues are not yet settled. And it is contradictory to multiple scientific(DNA) researches,- that even questioned the existence of 'Aryans'. Bladesmulti (talk) 10:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * This is not really an issue for this board, at least not in the way Bladesmulti seems to think it is. IAMt is not remotrely a fringe theory, and of course it should be central to discussion of the Vedic religion. This issue arises because user:Joshua Jonathan has been trying to improve these articles, which are magnets for Hindutva cruft. I have a busy schedule at the moment, so can't help in keeping this issue focussed on scholarship, rather than being held hostage to ridiculous ideological/nationalist agendas. So more eyes are certainly needed. Bladesmulti's last sentence indicates his utter incomprehenion of the issue. The existence of "Aryan" DNA as a biological entity is as irrelevant to the issue as the existence of "Latin" DNA in France or Romania. Paul B (talk) 12:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You don't know but this board is not just for fringe theories, but anything that is contradicting the fringe policy. Kurgan Hypothesis was discussed here before, which is related with this. If the reliable citation says that there is no DNA evidence, that is what we have to mention. Another problem is that if these hypothesis should be posed as real when they are not yet established and contradicts to scientific researches. If you compare the version before January 2014 to the current one, you mostly find the one sided explanation to have been repeated and much of the refutation being removed. We should rather point the contradiction. Plus it is already being denied I don't see any professing since the last DNA research(from 2011). Did you? Bladesmulti (talk) 13:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh my, Blades, please state the question in a proper way. As you've stated it now, there's only one answer: yes, the IAMt is a historical fact. The theory exists.
 * What you are trying to say is that the migration of the Indo-Aryan people, cq. the spread and diffusion of the Indo-European languages and culture, is not a "fact", but a theoretical assumption. Dù...
 * Your reference to WP:FRINGE completely misses the point yu want to make, but underscores the opposite: the IAMT, c.q. Indo-European Migration theory (IEMt) does represent the scientific consensus.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   14:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * But you still haven't named even a single scientist who claims it to be scientific? It is not actually historic because it is based on linguistic similarities that are usually debunked and have no factual basis. See Pseudoscientific language comparison. Thus your explanation has nothing to with the above question that still remains unanswered. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * All historical linguists agree on this. There is no debate about this in the science of historical linguistic. The genealogical unity of the indo-European languages - including the Indo-Aryan languages is a basic and foundational assumption of the entire field of historical linguistics and therefore noone has to argue about its status in the literature. It would be akin to astronomers arguing about whether the earth is flat, or biologists arguing about divine creation. It is simply outside of the realm of that which can reasonably be doubted given the available evidence.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't need your EXCEPTIONAL claims, I had asked for the valid citation that you haven't brought. Also we are talking about the migration, not proposed linguistic similarities. Bladesmulti (talk) 23:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You are not fooling anyone by spouting acronyms, everyone can see that you are the one making the exceptional claim here. (namely that the Indo-aryan migration is not accepted by science) I have on the other hand provided more than five different mainstream scientific sources that state this as fact. The onus is on you to show some better sources in support of your claim that the migration theory is "no longer accepted".User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * -- are not exceptional but common understanding about the hypothesis that there is no reality in it. Have you even read my original post? You are misinterpreting your booklinks as scientific when one of those two says that there is lack of archaeological evidence in this hypothesis. None of them talks about the scientific researches such as those that I have mentioned. Bladesmulti (talk) 23:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That is not a scientific book bladesmulti, it is book published by a commercial printer written by a non-specialist with no credetntials in the relevant field ("Kamlesh Kapur, an educator and researcher, has a Masters in. Economics from Punjab. University, and a. Masters in Education from St. John's." she is also a grantee of the religious Infinity foundation). Why you would link to it is a mystery because it only demonstrates your lack of understanding about what is and isnt "scientific". You need tyo stop, cause this is getting nowhere and you are wasting everyones time. Go preach your hindutva nonsense somewhere else.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My question still remained unanswered. Why you are not even reading it? Where did I said that it was a scientific book? It is only analayzing the other scientific research that each of your citation that are lacking. Linguistic is not even a subject here since we are talking about the credibility of a hypothesis that is violating FRINGE. If you cannot handle, then at least you can consider to stop posting some irrelevant books. By canvassing one of the user for favoring your argument and when other uninvolved users are clearly opposing the hypothesis on scientific basis, you are required to collaborate with them. Bladesmulti (talk) 00:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no collaborating with people like you who are hellbent on pushing a fringe POV. You have demonsytrated very clearly that you are neither willing or able to listen to reason or even to identify a reliable source or use the word "science" in a meaningful way. You are in violation of WP:FRINGE because you are trying to represent what all mainstream sources agree is a fringe view as if it had any validity. That is advocacy and has no place on wikipedia. By citing studies that are clearly advocacy published by religious organizations in order to promote a non-scientific religious viewpoint you show that you cannot be trusted to edit in good faith. I have no reason to read that kind of stuff because it has no bearings on how wikipedia should write about this topic. User Taivo is an expert editor who is a professional historical linguist. That is why his input is valuable. You on the other hand is a religious fanatic with an axe to grind and your input is useless untill you start listening to reason. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It is not a "Fringe POV" when one is adhering to FRINGE policy. Yes we can cite a few scholars who claim Peruvians to be the ancestors of Celts and interpret it as "mainstream" when none of your hypothesis is recommend nor it has received universal acceptance. Bladesmulti (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * He did. Mallory, Witzel and Jamison are all trained in linguistics and use it as part of their general work. Are you claiming that all linguists are "pseudo-scientific?" Kautilya3 (talk) 18:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * A share of proposed linguistic similarities does not require human migration. Mallory himself says that the languages may have spread under the conditions of friendly trade. For proving actual human migration, there is a need of other scientific evidence like DNA, archaeology, etc. and it is lacking. Bladesmulti (talk) 18:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. You are misrepresenting what Mallory says. Trade is a form of migration, what he is saying that it need not have been a military invasion. A migration of speakers is an absolute requirement for explaining the linguistic history. There is no need for any other evidence to establish that. And yet there is ample evidence of influx of genes, cultural artefacts and people into the subcontinent.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Neighbors can inspire neighbors in terms of language, where is the need of migration here? Keep your belief to yourself. You are going way off here without properly reading what he has told. Point is that there is no proof of migration, just stories, unless you have got some proof or research that has explicitly proven. Bladesmulti (talk) 22:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No they cannot. That is not how language spread happens, and noone in the world believes it does. Historical theories cannot be proven, they can only be disproven and this one far from being disproven has found wide and unequivocal support. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And proof that the migration is correct? Bladesmulti (talk)

Blades, it's interesting that you refer to Mait Metspalu et al. (2011), Shared and Unique Components of Human Population Structure and Genome-Wide Signals of Positive Selection in South Asia. It was brought in by Vic. I've commented to this article at Talk:Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis; I'll copy it here: So, what does the article say: Now, this fits in perfectly with the IAMt, as described by both Anthony and Beckwith (I'm quiting Kautilya3 here): "He [Beckwith] said that the males migrated and married local women. The pidgin languages that their children spoke gave rise to the variety of Indo-European languages." Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   07:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The IEMt/IAMt does not speak about large groups of people moving around, sot he lack of genetic changes fits into the theory. It speaks about linguistic and cultural change. Small (elite) groups can effect great changes. David Anthony and Michael Witzel have given some explanations for this; see Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis.
 * "We analyze 25 diverse groups to provide strong evidence for two ancient populations, genetically divergent, that are ancestral to most Indians today. One, the “Ancestral North Indians” (ANI), is genetically close to Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Europeans, while the other, the “Ancestral South Indians” (ASI), is as distinct from ANI and East Asians as they are from each other."
 * "Many Indian and European groups speak Indo-European languages, while the Adygei speak a Northwest Caucasian language. It is tempting to hypothesize that the population ancestral to ANI and CEU spoke “Proto-Indo-European”, which has been reconstructed as ancestral to both Sanskrit and European languages, although we cannot be certain without a date for ANI-ASI mixture."
 * "The stronger gradient in males, replicating previous reports, could reflect either male gene flow from groups with more ANI relatedness into ones with less, or female gene flow in the reverse direction. However, extensive female gene flow in India would be expected to homogenize ANI ancestry on the autosomes just as in mtDNA, which we do not observe. Supporting the view of little female ANI ancestry in India, Kivisild et al.44 reported that mtDNA ‘haplogroup U’ splits into two deep clades. ‘U2i’ accounts for 77% of copies in India but ~0% in Europe, and ‘U2e’ accounts for 0% of all copies in India but ~10% in Europe. The split is ~50,000 years old, indicating low female gene flow between Europe and India since that time."
 * There is 'genetic divide' between north and south India;
 * The northerns are genetically close to Europeans;
 * The researchers are 'tempted to hypothesize' that the ancestors of the the northerns and Europeans spoke Proto-Indo-European;
 * There has been an ongoing inflow of male genes, but not of female genes.
 * It says that there was no admixture in DNA for last 40,000 years+, --. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You're referring to the famous Thangarajan-study, not to the study above.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   08:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

But, let's see what Fountain Ink states: It's not clear to me how this study "proves" that the IAMt is "wrong". Notice also: "according to many linguists and historians, the Sanskrit language and Vedic culture were making an appearance". Best regards,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   08:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Most Indians alive today are descended from a mixture of two very diffrent populations, Reich and colleagues reported in Nature in 2009 based on a study of 25 ethnic groups. Thse two populations—the red and green of the earlier analogy—were given the names Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI)."
 * "Th ANI showed genetic similarities with Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Central Asians. Some ANI ancestry was present in almost all Indian groups, but the percentage was found to be greater in the north of India and lesser in the south"
 * "Broadly, groups that spoke IndoEuropean languages and were traditionally considered upper-caste had a larger ANI component."
 * "It was still unknown when exactly these populations had mixed. Thse details came in August this year in the American Journal of Human Genetics. K. Thngaraj and Reich’s groups had assembled data from 73 diffrent ethnic groups from across India and two from Pakistan"
 * "In summary: about 4,200 years ago, there would have been people in the Indian subcontinent who were completely ANI in their genetic makeup, and others who were completely ASI. About 1,900 years ago, there were likely no pure populations of either ANI or ASI left So, there began about 4,200 years ago a period of demographic change due to inter-breeding among two dramatically diffrent populations. Then, after about 1,900 years ago, there was no signifcant inter-breeding, pointing to cultural changes that brought in a strong form of endogamy, the practice of marrying within one’s group. Th period is known to be a particularly eventful one for the Indian subcontinent: large-scale changes were occurring in river systems and climate; the Harappan civilisation was fragmenting; and, according to many linguists and historians, the Sanskrit language and Vedic culture were making an appearance"
 * "K. Thngaraj believes it was much longer ago, and that the ANI came to India in a second wave of migration that happened perhaps 40,000 years ago."

Restatement
So, if we restate your question:
 * 1. Is the the IAMT, c.q. IEMt, a scientific theory which is accepted by the scientific community?
 * 2. Is the "Indigenous Aryans theory" WP:FRINGE?  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   14:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * None of them are accepted by the scientific community. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

To answer your questions:
 * 1. Mallory & Adams (2006), The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World:
 * "Currently, there are two types of models that enjoy signifiant international currency (Map 26.1)." (p.460)
 * "There is the Neolithic model that involves a wave of advance from Anatolia c. 7000 bc and, at least for south-eastern and central Europe, argues primarily for the importation of a new language by an ever growing population of farmers." (p.460)
 * "Alternatively, there is the steppe or kurgan model which sees the Proto-IndoEuropeans emerging out of local communities in the forest-steppe of the Ukraine and south Russia. Expansion westwards is initiated c. 4000 bc by the spread from the forest-steppe of mobile communities who employed the horse and, within the same millennium, wheeled vehicles." (p.461)


 * Clear answer: the the IAMT, c.q. IEMt, is a scientific theory which is generally accepted, while the "Indigenous Aryans" theory is not even being mentioned. Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   14:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That book is outdated in the sense that it was written before the decline of the Indo Aryan Migration hypothesis, it is not discussing any scientific data.
 * I am not getting that why you are even copying this irrelevant quote for misinterpreting its status as scientific. We have already discussed it on the talk page, haven't we? Bladesmulti (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You are quite mistaken, Bladesmulti. The Mallory and Adams book is the current most accurate survey of the IEMt.  It is completely and totally scientific and accepted by all competent Indo-European scholars.  There is no qualified dissent from its findings or discussion.  For example, Benjamin W. Fortson IV, Indo-European Language and Culture, An Introduction, Second edition (2010, Wiley-Blackwell); David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (2007, Princeton); George Cardona & Dhanesh Jain, "General Introduction," The Indo-Aryan Languages (2003, Routledge, pp. 1-45).  The claim that the IAMt is false is simply not supported by linguistic fact.  This is not a "theory" any more than gravity is a "theory".  --Taivo (talk) 21:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not yet established facts. I have seen more books that would regard them as completely clueless. And none of those books that you have named are talking about the scientific credibility of the hypothesis. Bladesmulti (talk) 23:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * 2. Michael Witzel, Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University:
 * "The 'revisionist project' certainly is not guided by the principles of critical theory but takes, time and again, recourse to pre-enlightenment beliefs in the authority of traditional religious texts such as the Purånas. In the end, it belongs, as has been pointed out earlier, to a different 'discourse' than that of historical and critical scholarship. In other words, it continues the writing of religious literature, under a contemporary, outwardly 'scientific' guise [...] The revisionist and autochthonous project, then, should not be regarded as scholarly in the usual post-enlightenment sense of the word, but as an apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking aiming at proving the 'truth' of traditional texts and beliefs. Worse, it is, in many cases, not even scholastic scholarship at all but a political undertaking aiming at 'rewriting' history out of national pride or for the purpose of 'nation building'." ()  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   14:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Who asked for this irrelevant quote?
 * We are talking about why we should give weight to a hypothesis, often defunct. Which is violation of policy on fringe. Witzel is not a scientist. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * And in her review of Bryant's "The Indo-Aryan Controversy" Stephanie Jamison, Professor, Department of Asian Languages & Cultures, comments:
 * "...the parallels between the Intelligent Design issue and the Indo-Aryan "controversy" are distressingly close. The Indo-Aryan controversy is a manufactured one with a non-scholarly agenda, and the tactics of its manufacturers are very close to those of the ID proponents mentioned above. However unwittingly and however high their aims, the two editors have sought to put a gloss of intellectual legitimacy, with a sense that real scientific questions are being debated, on what is essentially a religio-nationalistic attack on a scholarly consensus." ()


 * Also a clear answer: the "Indigenous Aryans" theory is fringe.

Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   14:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Just like the Indo-Aryan Migration hypothesis as none of them have any scientific status. Above author has no status in scientific field. Just throwing the word 'science' anywhere doesn't make the pointed object any scientific. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You very clearly have no clue about what science mean or what it means for a theory to have scientific status.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Maunus Show a single citation where 'scientific' status is being claimed by a non-believer of this hypothesis if you feel so confident about it? Just like I have shown multiple where they consider its status to be contradictory to science. Bladesmulti (talk) 22:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That is an absurd request. It is like asking for a citation from a creationist arguing that the theory of evolution is "scientific". It is neither possible or relevant. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you just made another nonsensical attempt without addressing the proper question? Avoid the red herring. There are millions of scientists that we can find for the theory of evolution, where none for this hypothesis. Why you even compare this defunct hypothesis with universal theory of evolution? Bladesmulti (talk) 22:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My god you are dense. ALL mainstream historical linguists accept the fact that indic languages originated outside of India.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:01, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like you have obvious issues with competence. See how you are changing the subject and trying to make up discussion about some subject that is irrelevant here. I didn't asked you to misinterpret the linguistic agreement and at least not without a proper citation, I had asked you to show a single scientist who claims any credibility of this hypothesis. Bladesmulti (talk) 23:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * LOL. You are a complete and utter moron, and should be permanently blocked for disruption and POV pushing. I will not continue to discuss with you since you are clearly outside of the reach of reason. Go back to your hindutva alternative reality if you like, but just keep that crap the fuck out of wikipedia which is intended for rational human beings to educate themselves.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Still my questions remain unanswered and your inflammatory nonsense strikes up. Bladesmulti (talk)


 * Some theories are so widely accepted that they have the status as the kind of provisional facts that scientists work with as basic assumptions. The "Indo-Aryan migration theory", which simply means that Indo-European languages originated outside of india, is one of those facts. There are two main contenders for the history of the I-E languages, the Kurgan and the Anatolian hypotheses. Neither of them is compatible with an account that sees IE as having originated within the Indian subcontinent. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Blades, this statement "Above author has no status in scientific field" is ridiculous. Totally, complete bullshit. Open your eyes and read again, very slowly:
 * Michael Witzel, Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University (
 * Stephanie Jamison, Professor, Department of Asian Languages & Cultures;
 * J.p Mallory, emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast, a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the editor of the Journal of Indo-European Studies;
 * Douglas Quentin Adams, professor of English at the University of Idaho.
 * If professors don't have status in the academic field, not even Harvard professors, then who does?  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   19:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * We don't determine the validity of a hypothesis by the "status" of a professor. A professor at any level can push garabage under an appeal to authority that way. That is instead determined by acceptance of the idea by others in the field in the peer-reviewed literature. When you summarize the literature reviews in the field, what do they say? Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * They do not even mention the possibility that Indo-Aryan languages could have originated within the subcontinent. It is a non-starter.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "We don't determine the validity of a hypothesis by the 'status' of a professor". Umm, yes we do. That's exactly what we do. Wikipedia works by 'appeal to authority'. That the whole point of WP:RS and WP:OR. We don't argue the ins and outs of arguments for or against a theory. We assess the views of authorities. As for you request for a "literature review", this is not really a typical feature of the relevant scholarly fields. Paul B (talk) 21:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's not how scientific publishing works. An idea gains notoriety based on the authority of the evidence making the claim. At Wikipedia, we give authority to things like journals which organize and publish the vetted research, but not so much the individual. Either way, I didn't have much trouble doing a quick literature search and getting some reviews pretty close to the topic at hand. It seems far from a topic where people wouldn't publish considered that. Someone who is more knowledgeable on the topic and could do a more concise literature search shouldn't have a problem pulling out recent reviews. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See above and below: accepted mainstream theory (the Indo-European Migration theory/Indo-Aryan Migration theory, not the socalled"Out of India theory", which is fringe).  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   19:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I asked because nothing is really jumping out at me from the few sources mentioned here. Some don't appear to be peer-reviewed (so they can say pretty much whatever they want), and book reviews aren't too reliable for assessing scientific consensus. WP:RS/AC is pretty clear that we need clear statements of consensus from strong sources, and I'm not really seeing that from my quick glance. That's why I'm asking what reliable secondary sources actually say for and against the idea if at all (and that's for everyone involved here). Without that, we can't determine if the view is mainstream, a minority view, or fringe. If each source could be put in a list here or at the talk page with just one sentence or two for the main conclusion it's drawing, we could at least start trying to figure out where the weight lies. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Read these and see what "jumps out at you":
 * Danesh Jain, George Cardona. 2007. The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge, Chapter 1. General Introduction (discusses the debate of the Indic homeland and sides with mainstream migrationist view)
 * Benjamin W. Fortson, IV. 2011. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons, p. 206 (states invasion as simple fact, mentions no other view)
 * J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams. 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. p. 306. Taylor & Francis. Assumes as fact that proto-Indic was on the iranian plateau and moved from there into the subcontinent.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Cherrypicking a few books without properly reading is irrelevant and even more when they don't mention scientific agreement or talk about science, instead claim that hypothesis has no firm archeological evidence Bladesmulti (talk) 23:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Cherrypicking is my concern too, but if these are fringe ideas, what are the sources that establish the mainstream idea then Bladesmulti? Any recent reviews? Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Those all look like books where anyone can say pretty much whatever they want. If we're going to talk about academic consensus, I'd be looking for peer-reviewed papers. I'm not really seeing any concrete sources that we'd use for stating scientific consensus yet. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I dont think you are really sufficiently familiar with this field of science to say what they look like. These are peer reviewed books published by academic presses published by the major authorities in the field - and of course peer reviewed. They are also secondary sources that summarize the standing of the field. In history peer reviewed articles are generally original reserach studies. Incidentally you shouldnt listen to Bladesmulti who is the povpusher here who is pushing religiously published sources written by non experts and trying to claim that they have any relevance for assessing the standing of the field.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that Kingofaces43 had good understanding about it, we cannot overlap or violate the FRINGE guideline only because a hypothesis was supported by an academic who has to do nothing with the scientific community. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Further discussion
I'm not knowledgeable in this area at all, but just looking at Historical_Vedic_religion, whatever the truth or other wise of the hypothesis, the long section on the origins of the Vedic religion seems out of place. After all what evidence could their be of their religion clear enough to be relevant to the article? Also - a good way to get a first idea about something like this is to look at other encyclopedias to see how they treat it. So Encyclopedia Britannica for instance clearly states it as a largely discredited hypothesis, see http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/37468/Aryan

""However, since the late 20th century, a growing number of scholars have rejected both the Aryan invasion hypothesis and the use of the term Aryan as a racial designation, suggesting that the Sanskrit term arya (“noble” or “distinguished”), the linguistic root of the word, was actually a social rather than an ethnic epithet. Rather, the term is used strictly in a linguistic sense, in recognition of the influence that the language of the ancient northern migrants had on the development of the Indo-European languages of South Asia. In the 19th century the term was used as a synonym for “Indo-European” and also, more restrictively, to refer to the Indo-Iranian languages. It is now used in linguistics only in the sense of the term Indo-Aryan languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family.""

That's markedly different in tone from the current article, which would seem to suggest that it is promoting a fringe hypothesis. It might be an idea to search for other more specialist encyclopedias to see how they treat the hypothesis and what weight they put on it. Also the previous version of the article was similar in tone to the Encyclopedia Britannica entry, and had been worked on by many editors - so again as a meta observation that would seem to support the suggestion that it should be treated as fringe, marked as such, and not stated as fact in other articles. As for origin of the languages - it is surely a separate question. Otherwise you'd conclude that large parts of the world population migrated to their present location from the UK because they speak English, when that's only true of some of the places where English is spoken as the main language. Hope these observations help in some way! Robert Walker (talk) 19:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Robert, two things: it's about the "Indo-Aryan Migration theory", not the "Aryan Invasion theory". You don't know indeed what you're talking about. And two: I already told you three times today to stop harassing me diff diff diff; one more time, and you're back at ANI.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   19:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I am not sure I understand what you are saying. There is no mention of "invasion" or "race" in our Historical Vedic religion. So, what discredited ideas are we using? As for the question of what evidence there is of their religion, we have texts, most notably the Rig Veda, which has extremely detailed information about their religion. None of this is controversial.
 * The only debate at the moment is as to whether these "aryans", i.e., Indo-European speakers, were indigenous or came from the outside. Our User:Bladesmulti here contends that there is no evidence that they came from the outside. The fact that they spoke an Indo-European language that was current in other parts of Eurasia isn't good enough for him. So, your input on this linguistic issue would be useful. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 19:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * But what is the need to even fork one-sided positive explanation to the articles when it is not a universal theory and already superseded? Bladesmulti (talk) 22:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Correct, there is no need to fork this. This should all be treated in a single place, where both the mainstream view and the various fringe views such as the OOIT are given their due weight. That will mean that your favorite scholars will of course receive much less coverage than they do now, because such a page will be written from the POV of mainstream science not Hindutva propaganda.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh not doubting the ancient origins of the Vedas, hope that's clear! But - does the question of origin help to understand how the Vedas developed? As I said, linguistic origin is clearly a separate question from whether a migration occurred, as migration is just one of several ways languages can spread. For complexity of the processes see The Different Modes of Language Spread Robert Walker (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, migration is ALWAYS involved in language spread and shift. Languages cannot travel without people. But there are different kinds of migrations that correlate with different kinds of spread and different timescales and social outcomes.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Try reading the article - The Different Modes of Language Spread he gives several examples where languages spread with only a small number of individuals who migrated. Indeed, some of his examples, there was no physical movement of people at all, it just spread to the culture from trading partners


 * ""Yet the indigenes held on in a number of rugged areas, particularly those characterized by heavy, year-round rainfall, such as the Sierra Madre Mountains of eastern Luzon** (in the winter dry season, the Sierra Madre catches rain from trade winds forced up-slope). From such redoubts, however, the indigenous foragers interacted extensively with their Austronesian neighbors, exchanging rain-forest products for agricultural and manufactured goods. Eventually, the languages of their trading partners fully “diffused” across their societies and then began to evolve in their own directions. Today, the several surviving “Negrito languages” are much more closely related to the languages of their neighbors than they are to each other.""


 * These examples (the Negritos, the Pygmies, the Aslians, etc.) are all examples of relic populations that have been pushed (or originated) in marginal habitats and who adapted their language for purposes of survival. In no case are these examples of a large, vibrant population being linguistically overwhelmed by a small minority without some type of military invasion by a substantial number of invaders.  When a large population is linguistically subsumed, it is always by force and always by significant numbers of invaders.  --Taivo (talk) 21:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh he gives an example of that also: "The Magyars, on the other hand, were able to firmly establish their language, which is spoken today by roughly 15 million people, even though the Magyars themselves were a relatively small group, substantially outnumbered by the peoples that they dominated.". Also trade is powerful too. It was a major reason for the spread of the Phoenician alphabet for instance:  Spread of the  Phoenician alphabet and its social effects - that's mainly because they were such great traders, not invaders. So can be many reasons, not just military. I don't know what are the preferred hypotheses here - but just saying that generally you can't deduce a huge amount from the spread of a language, as I understand it, unless you know how it spread. Robert Walker (talk) 21:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but that is wrong. Linguists can deduce a lot from the spread of the language, for example they can achieve a good idea about how it spread. In fact in the absence of written historical sources there is no other way to find out how language spread. And no, it is not always military and noone is claiming that it is. That is not what this is about. This is about the fact that all linguists who are not religiously invested in a fringe hypothesis agree that Indo-Aryan languages originated outside of India and arrived there by migrations. the question of whether this was a military invasion or not is entirely irrelevant and wading around in it muddles the discussion.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And the spread of an alphabet is irrelevant to the question of the spread of a language. Alphabets are independent of language--the dynamics are quite different.  And Maunus is right--the specific mechanism of how Proto-Indo-Aryan arrived in the subcontinent is immaterial to the fact that it arrived from outside.  Reading the ridiculous comments elsewhere here (and on the Talk Page of the article), that hundreds of Indo-European cognate sets and 200 years of historical linguistic reconstruction have been thrown out the window reminded me of some of the most laughable nationalistic pseudo-science.  There simply is no debate in the legitimate scientific community on this--Indo-Aryan has its origins in central Ukraine (or, less likely, Anatolia) and Proto-Indo-European.  --Taivo (talk) 22:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Just to say - I don't know what the current opinion is about either - but these are two different hypotheses. "Indo-Aryan languages originated outside of India", " and arrived there by migrations." - whether the languages originated outside India or inside, and whether, if they originated outside, they spread via migrations or via other methods such as trade, conquest (which could be temporary with the conquestors later retreating to their original homelands), intermarriage, diffusion, etc. And cognate sets do not by themselves show the direction of influence. And in any case all this discussion seems WP:OR to me. Who is it who has this hypothesis? If it is a well established widely respected theory there should be - not just isolated papers - but many of them by dozens of authors - and whole books on the topic by distinguished academics, but I don't see a lot by way of sources being shared here. Just a lot of talk. I know I don't know much about the topic but then on the other hand that may give me a little bit of an outside perspective also, possibly... Robert Walker (talk) 00:08, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Robert, you are not helping anyone here. Major sources, handbooks, encyclopedias, and textbooks have been produce that clearly show that this is the only theory that has any backing in mainstream scholarship. Your "outside perspective" is not useful when all you use if for is to sow doubt about a theory that is so mainstream that noone even argue about it except from a handful of religiously motivated scholars in India and their supporters. As for your attempts at being "nuanced" and "complex" aboutit: Conquest, trade, intermarriage are also forms of migration, they just have different implications for HOW language spreads because they involve different kinds of social relations between the migrants and the natives. We are not arguing about that. All we are arguing is that ALL the relevant literature is unanimous in the fact that the Indic languages originated outside of India and spread into India through some kind of migration. Which kind of migration is a different question. Look at the sources that Taivo and I have provided. Then think about whether you really have anything to add to this discussion. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In those books, there is no indication of FRINGE that is warning against promoting the hypothesis as facts when they have no acceptance in scientific community. Further one of your 1/2 book argued that the archaeological evidence is likely nothing. That is not what we are looking for. Bladesmulti (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Our page doesn't say that the Vedas were imported from the outside. Heaven forbid! We would get nailed to the wall if we said anything like that. However, historians know that some aspects of this religion: animal sacrifice, fire worship etc., must have existed prior to their arrival in India because they also show up in other regions: Iran and Greece etc. The same kind of comparative method used in linguistics is also being used to reconstruct the religion, literary traditions etc. of the ancestors, but all that is still in infancy. Kautilya3 (talk) 20:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Okay perhaps that needs to be made clearer -that long origins section seems like it is intended to explain the origins of the Vedas to a casual newbie reader. It doesn't make too clear what aspects of the previous religions are thought to be relevant to the Vedas, maybe if that was explained it would be clearer. I'm referring to Historical_Vedic_religion and for instaqnce "The Vedic beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era were closely related to the hypothesised Proto-Indo-European religion,[28][29] and the Indo-Iranian religion.[30] According to Anthony, the Old Indic religion probably emerged among Indo-European immigrants in the contact zone between the Zeravshan River (present-day Uzbekistan) and (present-day) Iran". Which would seem to suggest the Vedas came from Iran at a first read. And if that's not what it is about - why give so much space in this article to this discussion? Robert Walker (talk) 21:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It turns out that I understated our case earlier. It is not just fire worship and animal sacrifice, but also all the major Rigvedic gods are present in the other Indo-Iranian branches. The little boxes at the right of the origins section are expandable map templates. (You probably didn't realize.) The third map in the Indo-Aryan Migration template shows 4 green arrows coming out of the Andronovo culture, which are the Indo-Iranian branches. I believe all of them have knowledge of the Rigvedic gods. The earliest written mention of the gods actually is found in Syria and Anatolia in 1500 BC! So, there are good reasons for the discussion in the "Origins" section. But I will let Joshua Jonathan take in your comment and see if he wants to condense it a bit. Kautilya3 (talk) 23:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not a good reason, when they are just speculations. Similar to the claim of Peruvians that are ancestors of the Celts. Bladesmulti (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In fact the Britannica is absolutely clear and unequivocal about this: "Vedic religion, also called Vedism, the religion of the ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples who entered India about 1500 bce from the region of present-day Iran" You are really just demonstrating that you don't know what the "fringe hypothesis" actually is. You are confusing the idea of an "invasion" of "Aryans" (hence 'use of the term Aryan as a racial designation') with the largely accepted view that Vedic culture evolved from an earlier Indo-European religion as a result of the expansion and migration of early I-E peoples. There's nothing remotely fringe about that. You are just sowing confusion and adding to muddle created by the confused comments here of Blademulti. Paul B (talk) 19:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * How many times we have considered that Britannica is an unreliable weblink? What type of largely accepted you are talking about? Are they taught in universities? Colleges? Hypothesis seems outdated now. Read can you find any advocacy for this hypothesis after - proven scientific research? Bladesmulti (talk) 22:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Generally whenever one feels the need to preface a statement with "I am not knowledgeable about this area" that would be a cause for reconsidering the urge to participate in a complex discussion about that specific topic.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * FYI:Discussion of Robertinventor´s use of talk pages. Robert is collecting reasons to propose a topic-ban.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   19:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It's on the disambiguation page for Aryan invasion theory so - it's an understandable mistake I hope? Never said I was expert on this, and trying to help. If that section of Enc. Brit. is not relevant, how about finding another similar encyclopedia entry, to help clarify this, maybe in a more specialized encyclopedia on religion, whether it is regarded as a fringe theory? You get many professors and some of them have fringe theories and being a Harvard professor doesn't mean that you can't also publish fringe theories from time to time, so I think arguments like that are unlikely to settle the debate by themselves. Just a thought. If what I say is not helpful, I just offer my apologies to you all! Robert Walker (talk) 19:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Close Please
This whole nonsense is one unscientific POV-pushing religio-nationalist trying to claim that his fringe nonsense is somehow mainstream (based on no valid scientific sources) and that mainstream science (99.99% of all historical linguists and archeologists) has somehow been invalidated. We have presented ample current scientific literature to prove that User:Bladesmulti is utterly wrong in his assertions, but he has a serious case of deafness when it comes to the facts of the matter--claiming that we have posted no sources when we have posted current, credible, scientific sourcing. Sadly, there are admitted non-specialists here who are unwittingly feeding the troll. This whole time-wasting thread should be closed. It is Randy in Boise. --Taivo (talk) 00:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Your first sentence can be correct when we see that the many scholars regard the hypothesis as unscientific and also pseudoscientific.- I hope you are talking about the outdated hypothesis that frequently changed its meaning in order to gain acceptance but it never received any acceptance from scientific community. You are obviously not competent enough to consider it, but let me help you there. The link that have have mentioned comes even before the recent scientific researches.(-) Of course there is no wonder that we don't see any advocacy for the hypothesis anymore now. Just because uninvolved and policy understanding users happen to disagree with you and you are not backing with even a single citation that would support your belief. It doesn't means that you would be allowed to misinterpret the science,(bogus 99.9% estimate, not even 000.1% in actual) I said that the your citations are irrelevant because they indeed don't discuss the scientific evidence, and 1 of those two even said that there is lack of archaeological evidence. Bladesmulti (talk) 00:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Bladesmulti the words "emotional" and "unscientific" in the source you are quoting are used to describe the Iindigenous Aryan hypothesis. The hypothesis that you claim have any scientific validity. You really are either incredbily stupid trying to pass this off as if it was supporting you, or else you are editing in so bad faith that you are only interested in confusing people. Either way you should be blocked and removed form this venue were tou are currently wasting a lot fo editors time.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I have changed them accordingly, but and where did I said that I was talking about the Indo-aryan hypothesis and not Indigenious Aryans? You can see -, the elements of Indo-Aryan hypothesis are indeed pseudoscientific. It is considered that both of the hypothesis are incorrect, the previous one, "Indo Aryan" invasion theory is already rejected by mainstream as pseudoscientific. They have to be mentioned if they are backed by multiple reliable citations. Yes there is a argument that the elements of the aryan hypothesis are pseudoscience, which is even different than unscientific. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Did you see my suggestion to use this quote to hang the article on - or something like it? Maybe it is sufficiently neutral? I did a bit of a google scholar search and I turned up nothing yet that suggested that anything has been proved on this topic at all about the language, never mind about the idea of a migration. One of the citations above turned up - but as a controversial theory, not as a proven hypothesis everyone agreed on.

Suggested quote:

""The more careful members of the Indigenous Aryan school, at least, simply recognize that all that can be factually determined with the evidence available at present is that "the Indo-Europeans were located in the Indus-Sarasvati valleys, Northern Iran and Souther Russia". From this perspective, if the shared morphological and other similarities mandate that the Indo-Europeans had to come from a more compact area, that is, from one side of this large Indo-European-speaking expanse, most Indigenous Aryanists see no reason that it has to be from the western side" - Page 141 of "The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate" By Edwin Bryant"

Just an idea. Robert Walker (talk) 01:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see that the book predates these more recent scientific studies using DNA analysis. -). So I suppose we need something more recent. 2004 is well before DNA sequencing became low cost, easy and commonplace. Robert Walker (talk) 01:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I can't say much only just learning about this topic in the last hour or so, but I did start searching through more recent literature and found some interesting related primary studies on the Roma . I looked at what cited that article to find a review  which confirmed acceptance of the idea that European Roma migrated from northern India about 1000 years ago. I believe that's a slightly different topic than what's being discussed here, but that is the kind of process that should be used to find reviews that make statements like that. Not too hard to do if you know the material, and a review like that can only be refuted by other reviews if we stick to how we deal with scientific content. Otherwise though, I don't see any clear indication of anything being a mainstream view or fringe, so I'd suggest closing this as well until folks have tried to hash out the weight issue with more reliable sources (books aren't the best kind of source here) first. Otherwise it's difficult to gauge what's actually going on in the topic itself. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, academically published books are exactly the best kind of source here.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You can find academic support for many kinds of hypothesis, but they actually require scientific verification. If hypothesis is not accepted by scientific community, you cannot treat hypothesis as a fact. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Towards a possible resolution
Well I did do a bit of a search online for books on the subject in the hope it might give a wider view. And I found a couple, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate[ amd The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History and also comments on the book by those who bought it on Amazon who mainly gave it good reviews as a clear presentation of the issues in a complex debate The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate - with user reviews. That was just to get a first idea of climate of opinion - and - the impression I get from all that is a complex debate. Also tried a google scholar search and haven't come across anything at all that would seem to suggest that a migration to India has been "proved".

Incidentally the book offers two other hypotheses in addition to the two main ideas that the language spread from India to Europe - or the other way - from Europe to India (by whatever method) - another being that it was originally spoken over a large area including both India and Europe, i.e. that it evolved over that entire area - and his fourth hypothesis - that it originated by creolization of several different languages over the area covered -though he suggests that these last two hypotheses have issues that some more compact area would seem to be needed for the origin of the language. He says ""The more careful members of the Indigenous Aryan school, at least, simply recognize that all that can be factually determined with the evidence available at present is that "the Indo-Europeans were located in the Indus-Sarasvati valleys, Northern Iran and Souther Russia". From this perspective, if the shared morphological and other similarities mandate that the Indo-Europeans had to come from a more compact area, that is, from one side of this large Indo-European-speaking expanse, most Indigenous Aryanists see no reason that it has to be from the western side" - Page 141 of "The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate" By Edwin Bryant" . Perhaps a statement like that would be sufficiently neutral - maybe even that as a quote - to work here as a pivot around which to hang the rest of the arguments? Just an idea. Robert Walker (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Robert, historical theories cannot be "proven", they can be supported by evidence. And it takes experts to assess which theories have the strongest evidnce to support them. That is how a consensus develops and how theories become facts. The books you have found are fine, But they do not represent the mainstream view. They are an attempt by a hindu scholar (Bryant) to portray the two theories as if they are on equal footing. He is not a linguist and has no expertise in these questions himself - though his summary of the arguments is fine. His expertise is in the religious study of the Vedas. His own assessment of the standing of the argument is biased, and does not reflect the mainstream view. The part you are quoting is actually saying exactly that the most careful proponents of the non-mainstream view are merely suggesting that it cannot be proven with certitude whether the indoaryan languages originated in Indus or in Southern Russia. Please go to the [Talk:Indo-Aryan_migration_hypothesis#Some_Mainstream_sources]] and look at these sources, they will give you a better feeling for the consensus view in historical linguistics.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Honestly this is getting ridiculous. At this point several good faith editors who have no expertise or knowledge of the field of historical linguistics but who ae simply assuming good faith from the wrong person are getting played by a single FRINGE pov pusher with a hindu fundamentalist agenda who is succeeding in making it appear that there is any reasonable doubt about the issue. I would suggest that everyone who is not a professional historical linguist step back and listen to those who are actually knowledgeable in this are. That includes editors like Taivo, Paul Barlow, Dbachmann, Angr and myself, all of whom have actual expertise in the field (Angr and Dbachmann have not commented yet so you can go ask them directly for confirmation). Then look at Bladesmultis edits and see how much of it consists in pushing a Hindu fundamentalist POV in science articles. It really comes down to this. Alternatively try to actually look at the sources he quotes, in each case it is either a clearly unreliable source (written by people with no credentials or published by religious organizations) or he misrepresents them as saying the opposite of what they actually says. For example when he quoted from the Bryant book above saying that the theory was "emotional" and "unscientific" the person quoted is actually talking about the indigenous aryan theory (i.e. the opposite of the Aryan migration theory), and when he quotes the DNA paper that paper actually states the exact opposite, namely that northern Indians who speak Indo-Aryan languages have more genes in common with Indo-European speakers which of course actually supports the migration theory.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I have not supported indigenous theory, but instead I am talking about the FRINGE policy that tells you not to treat hypothesis as facts. Dbachmann had himself said in 2006 that all hypothesis should be at one page or their own pages, they shouldn't be brought outside. You are contradicting the policy on fringe and the current version of the article is not mentioning the Aryan race theory, that it is considered as pseudoscience. It is not mentioning the Aryan invasion theory, which was rejected by the end of 20th century, by just everyone. It is not mentioning that there is no genetic and no substantial archaeological evidence for supporting the hypothesis, nor it is mentioning the last DNA research. It looks like a one-sided puffrey piece. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You dont understand WP:FRINGE. And yes you have suppoerted indigenous aryan theory. Aryan race theory is an unrelated theory that is indeed pseudoscientific. It has nothing to do with the questions in historical linguistics that we are discussing. The DNA research yu keep ereferring to says the opposite of what you claim it says.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * How? And where I have supported it? DNA researches are not opposite, they clearly refutes the Aryan migration. Maybe that's why we don't see any advocacy for this hypothesis for over 3 years now? Bladesmulti (talk) 04:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your efforts. Let me start by asking you a couple of questions:
 * If a creationist came and asked whether the theory of evolution has been "proved," what would be you answer? Or, you can imagine a similar kind of question for any scientific theory: gravitation, relativity, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics or what have you.
 * You went and found two books other than those provided by Joshua and our linguist friends. Do those books support the assertion of Bladesmulti that Aryan Migration is a "fringe theory"?
 * You have read the reader's reviews on Amazon. But what about the professional book review provided by Joshua, published in the Journal of Indo-European Studies, the no. 1 scientific forum for this discipline? Did you read that?
 * You say that the book offers the two "main ideas" of India to Europe and Europe to India and then two others. Neither of these is the "main idea". The mainstream model is that the homeland of Indo-Europeans was in Central Eurasia (which I would regard as distinct from either "Europe" or "India"), and it is to the north of India, not the west. Yes, those people would have been white, if race is what this debate is supposed to be about. No sane scientist would ever propose that people migrated from India to Europe or from Europe to India in prehistoric times (a) because the distances were enormous and (b) neither India nor Europe knew of each other's existence. Rather it is the Central Eurasians that moved to the peripheral countries, including both India and Europe. The idea that there were such migrations is entirely logical. The Central Eurasians were nomadic pastoral tribes, highly mobile and living in low-rainfall steppes, and had to move to wherever the grass was green. If by chance they ended up near a settled civilization, they might move into it (or even attacked it) if they felt like it. This is what happened throughout the historical times, and there is no reason to suppose it would have been any different in prehistoric times.
 * Now, if some Indians want to propose that India could have been equally the homeland, all the power to them. Let them propose it, work out all the details, publish it and get the scholars' consent that it is a viable theory. Once they get their proposals accepted by the community as being viable, we will be glad to include it in Wikipedia. Until that happens, we can only ignore it or at best treat it as a fringe theory.
 * It is not our job to evaluate theories. The scholars need to do so. We only recognize whether the scholars evaluated them or not.
 * Our current architecture is a page on Indo-Aryan migration theory, covering the mainstream theory, where the Indian homeland ideas are briefly mentioned, and a separate Indigenous Aryans theory where the Indian ideas are covered. There have been discussions going on in the talk pages of both these pages. This is not the place rehash those discussions. Bladesmulti's "through the looking glass" inversion of the mainstream/fringe came out of the blue yesterday. He seems unable to comprehend that he has it completely backwards. Your help in persuading him would be highly appreciated. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 02:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * They do support that the hypothesis is not scientific, and the DNA researches shown negative results. The former(aryan race, aryan invasion) are considered as pseudoscience. But our page is not mentioning any of it. It looks very one-sided too. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Aryan race theory has nothing to do with this question and is indeed considered pseudoscience. "Aryan invasion" is an historical theory that states that the Indic languages (formerly called Indo-Aryan) arrived in India through military conquest, but which has nothing to do with the notion of an Aryan race,. Aryan migration theory is the mainstream view in historical linguistics of how the Indo-European languages originated in either Anatolia or the Pontic steppes migrating into Europe and the Indian Subcontinent. The "invasion theory" is controversial, but the migration theory is accepted by everyone except hindutva fundamentalists.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * We should mention its past as well and what it its current situation. Kazanas, Michel Danino, Edwin Bryant, etc. and whole scientific world are not "hindutva fundamentalists". Bladesmulti (talk) 04:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Kazanas is. Bryant is, if not a hindutva fundamentalist, at least highly sympathetic to that viewpoint, and like Kazanas or Talageri has no expertise in the relevant field. The current situation of the aryan migration theory is no different from its contemporary status. It is Aryan race theory that is today considered pseudoscience. I dont see why we would mention that in relation to this topic.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:04, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't agree there. Witzel, Mallory had praised the book of Bryant. Previously this page used to mention the Aryan race theory, later it was removed. If some reliable citations mentions these two along, and of course differentiate their changes by the time, we shall include them somewhere. Bladesmulti (talk) 05:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've been reading through all this time-wasting nonsense and it is quite clear that:
 * Bladesmulti doesn't know what science is and is simply pushing his religio-nationalist POV without any reliable sources
 * There are a couple of well-meaning editors who are trying to participate, but who seem to be completely ignorant of the field. They need to back out because they are making a mess of this.  This is a simple discussion if you know the field.  Anthony, Fortson, and Malloy & Adams are not lesser works--they are peer-reviewed works that summarize and detail the status of the IE field.  Cardona & Jain is the major handbook for the IA group of languages--it is authoritative.
 * Maunus and I (and perhaps Kautilya, but I don't know him well enough) are actually trained in this field and you need to listen to the two of us when we cite sources. We are giving you the sources that prove that there is no debate among linguists as to whether Indo-Aryan entered the subcontinent from outside origins--it did.  There is simply no debate among specialists.  The idea that Indo-Aryan (and, by extension, Indo-European) originated in India, or even the subcontinent, is baseless and has no credence among historical linguists.  It is a religio-nationalistic fringe theory without any linguistic evidence to back it up.  Indeed, the most common archeological horizon that I have seen associated with Indo-Aryan is the Andronovo complex of central Eurasia (east of Caspian Sea, north of Hindu Kush) (see Fortson book and the Anthony book, cited above in a couple of places).
 * Sorry to be so blunt, but this "debate" is a classic Randy in Boise situation. We don't need to be encouraging Bladesmulti in pushing the skeleton theory.  There are simply no reliable sources, written by reliable historical linguists, to back up any claims that IE or IA arose in India and hundreds of sources, ranging over the last century right up to the present day, that state that IA entered the subcontinent from the northwest.  --Taivo (talk) 04:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You don't know what you are talking about here. You have not even commented on migration or answered the actual question that was originally posted. We don't need your analysis when you cannot back it with some diffs. Anything that is supportive to science is not relgio-natiolist POV, or anything that you don't prefer to read.
 * You are citing one of the same author who suggests that the archaeological evidence is dubious.
 * This is second time that you have repeated your irrelevant comment, have you got something else to say? No we don't have to hear your beliefs but something that is on the subject. You are talking about the languages, which is not exactly controversial as the migration hypothesis.
 * Bladesmulti (talk) 05:09, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It is crystal clear that you have not read any of the sources that I have posted. Language is not independent of some form of migration.  While the Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from Central Asia's Andronovo complex did not necessarily completely replace the previous population, it is undisputed by actual scientists that there was a migration.  You simply have no actual scientific evidence otherwise.  Manaus has clearly shown how you have misquoted and misused every source that you have cited except for the unscientific pseudoscience that pushes your religio-nationalistic POV.  You are simply using a classic debate tactic often used in American political discourse by other unscientific religio-nationalistic fringe pseudoscience pushers--flood the discussion with misquotes, demands for proof, and then refusal to acknowledge the irrefutable proof that is given.  David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (2007, Princeton) has an entire chapter devoted to the cultural procession from north of the Caspian, through Andronovo and Petrovka complexes into the Pre-Vedic cultures just north of the Indian subcontinent.  Anthony's primary data are not linguistic, but archeological.  Combined with the linguistic evidence, it is simply irrefutable that there was a cultural and linguistic migration from north of the Hindu Kush into the Indian subcontinent in Pre-Vedic and Vedic times.  I'm not going to quote the entire chapter--get the book and read it.  --Taivo (talk) 07:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You have misread my comment just like he did, I was talking about these hypothesis since other one wasn't even related and continuously brought up. His primary data was based on linguistics but also comparison of archaeology(of different cultures(citing Owen 1991)). Why we are even bringing linguistic similarities when they don't even offer any credibility in this discussion about migration hypothesis that should be based on DNA, genetics. It is actually refuted by the scientist,-- you can yourself find many. The book you are mentioning is not even before these scientific researches or even mention it. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:10, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Eliza Jane Scovill
A dispute regarding commentary in this article has come up. This article is about the daughter of AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore who died ostensibly of an AIDS defining illness, and a dispute over the cause of death. A report by fellow denialist Mohammed Al-Bayati was commissioned and released by Maggiore, despite the fact that Al-Bayati is not an MD and not trained to determine cause of death. Properly sourced commentary that described Al-Bayati as not trained has been removed from this article due to being "too negative" about Al-Bayati. Members of this noticeboard may want to weigh in on the appropriateness of this removal. Yobol (talk) 01:22, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Notified the actual article. VandVictory (talk) 01:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

OTRS strikes again?
At the article Robert Sears (physician), a BLP with fringe aspects, content has recently been removed seemingly as the result of an OTRS request. This has led to a flurry of editing, and questions over how Sears' views on childhood vaccination should be presented. The eyes of WP:FRINGE-savvy editors may be helpful. Alexbrn talk 15:08, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Virginia Livingston
Can someone help at Virginia Livingston, I am trying to figure out what category to put her discredited theory that a single bacteria is responsible for all cancers. She wasn't a crank, just guilty of overwhelming confirmational bias. I added "pseudoscience" and "alternative medicine" already. I am not sure if "pseudoscience" is correct but her theories are current in alternative medicine. Is there a category for discredited theories? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:53, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The closest is Category:Obsolete scientific theories. jps (talk) 17:51, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem like pseudoscience, or alternative medicine, just a theory that didn't pan out. I like obsolete theories.  --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Travis Walton
Do what thou wilt.

jps (talk) 04:00, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * That is a really bad article. An argument might be made for notability but it is so completely PROFRINGE that I doubt it is salvageable. Most of the sources are fringe. My gut says AfD but I would like to get some other opinions. For now I have added some tags. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * See also Jenny Randles. Looks like another UFO promo article with mostly non-RS sourcing. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The Travis Walton article is typical of UFO articles created a decade ago: content presented from the POV of "UFO experts" with selected skeptical critiques noted yet firmly rebutted. The subject is notable enough for a stand alone article - but it needs to be rebuilt using sources that are independent of UFO-oriented authors. For example, note how news coverage of the subject details Walton's claims while maintaining an appropriate objectivity:. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:22, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the subject is likely notable. The only question is if the current article can be salvaged with a complete rewrite, or would it be easier to just blow it up and start from scratch. As of right now I think the entire article is FUBAR and most, if not all of the cited sources fail RS. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Manuel Rosa, possible socks
An article on this fringe Christopher Columbus researcher (an IT help desk worker at Duke University) has been recreated after being AfD'd years ago. It needs eyes. For some of the history of Rosa's visits here, see and. See also Talk:Filipa Moniz Perestrelo which may have been created by Rosa editing as blocked editor User talk:Colon-el-Nuevo, a known puppet master. Certainly this new article has been edited by an IP from Duke University and another from Miami, where Rosa is around now.. Dougweller (talk) 17:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * And . Rosa's blog? Dougweller (talk) 17:39, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Burzynski clinic


Stanislaw Burzynski and his son are up in front of the Texas Medical Board, and this is resulting in a lot of spamming of social media by his supporters. One of them has posted this: https://wikipediaburzynski.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/wikipedia-burzynski-clinic-antineoplastons-fact-checked-corrected/ - a quick read showed nothing that we need to change, but in the spirit of at listening respectfully to all points of view, even if they are demonstrably wrong, it is worth at least checking it just in case we have something actually wrong rather than simply stating a truth that believers find unwelcome. It's also worth watchlisting the article as there's no doubt that as the court dates loom, fans and shills will be all over us. Guy (Help!) 19:15, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/List of participants in the creation–evolution controversy
Since the reason for this AfD is mainly FRINGE/GEVAL violations, I figure I should leave a note here. Manul ~ talk 01:45, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Gold Wars


This looks like a pretty clear case of WP:PROFRINGE gold buggery. The sources are almost certainly Fringe. At one point the article had been turned into a redirect to Gold Standard but this was reverted without explanation. My inclination is to redirect this to Gold bug. Thoughts? Ping. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:06, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I favor converting it back to a redirect. Google results for "Gold Wars" don't turn up anything that looks like mainstream commentary. Geogene (talk) 23:38, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No issues with that. It was the original author who reverted the redirect back to the their article though, so it may make some sense to go to AFD, proposing a redirect just to prevent drama. Ravensfire ( talk ) 23:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The original author may also have a considerable COI. S/he claims to hold the copyright to the book cover just uploaded. Hmmm... -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:05, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That could just be from being a fairly new user and not understanding how they need to upload images like that and just went with the easiest option. Of course, since they uploaded it to commons, I suspect it will be deleted fairly quickly as a copyright violation. Ravensfire ( talk ) 00:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Could be. In any event the article has been sent to AfD... Articles for deletion/Gold Wars. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:17, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Silicon Valley secessionism
Granted this article has 3 (and only 3) references from fairly mainstream sources, it still comes across as Fringe. And I'm saying this as someone that lives in this region. Additional input would be appreciated. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 05:33, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, ha ha, well found, Scalhotrod. We read that "The concept has been advocated by a number of notable individuals, including prominent figures" (no source specified); and of all these notable and prominent personages, one (1) redlinked person is named: one speech he gave was greeted warmly and enthusiastically (sourced). Except that it wasn't, because the cited source says nothing about anything beyond "warmly". Article needs a fine-toothed comb, or maybe just a machete. -- Hoary (talk) 07:02, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * In Wired the main proponent named by the article claims the word secession is wildly exaggerated. See also this article. Our writedown needs some work. Sources galore, but they do not seem to say what our article says. Kleuske (talk) 11:47, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you and  for commenting. Although I am an Inclusionist, I am still left wondering if this article needs work or tagging for AfD. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 17:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The subject ia at best borderline in Notability. The real problem is that it is patently FRINGE and the article does not reflect that. Leaning towards AfD... -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, so its FRINGE presented as Mainstream? --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 01:30, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Two stories recently on CNN about Silicon Valley and LSD: ONE, TWO, wonder if it's related. The Silicon Valley article does not mention it. Raquel Baranow (talk) 01:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ...and there are stories about swingers in Silicon Valley too, but I'm not sure what that or LSD have to do with seceding. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 00:21, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Gunung Padang Megalithic Site - an Indonesian version of the alleged Bosnian pyramids
Just pruned it a lot, needs work but even more needs to be added to watch lists. See this. Dougweller (talk) 16:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Energy_quality and Emergy
Incredibly detailed and incomprehensible articles about Energy quality and Emergy. It is obviously fringe and may have some historical significance, but the articles present these ideas as current science. The ideas seem to be from Howard T. Odum. Bhny (talk) 22:05, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's some more weirdness- Energy flow (ecology) Open system (systems theory) Ecological energetics Maximum power principle Bhny (talk) 22:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Kill it, kill it with fire. Many of these are possibly plausible redirects for other things. Second Quantization (talk) 22:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Shape Effects Phenomenon
Probably a good faith effort by a new editor, but fails WP:RS as the journal is published by Scientific Research Publishing and of course fails our notability criteria. I'm busy, could someone else take a look and see if it should to AfD? And keep an eye on Pyramid power as the new editor added material to that saying it had been scientifically proven. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:24, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, AfD it should be: Articles for deletion/Shape Effects Phenomenon. jps (talk) 14:46, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Bioinitiative Report
We probably should deal with this article. What are the independent sources which discuss this self-published study?

jps (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Paleo*
Some edits are currently underway on Paleolithic diet, which has longstanding problems. Relatedly, we also have an article Paleolithic lifestyle, which seems built on rather shaky/fringey foundations. Could these articles be merged maybe? Thoughts? Alexbrn talk 06:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab
The article on PEAR seems to have been heavily edited to reduce the "this is pseudoscience" angle. But there's so many edits in 2015 by about three editors I'm not sure what's valid edit and what's not. I'd suggest some expert eyes assess its current state. Simonm223 (talk) 15:17, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks like sources such as poetsandengineers.com, www.opensciences.org, and www.scientificexploration.org have been introduced to water down the criticism, e.g. PEAR's work is merely "controversial" and only among "critics". - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Rendlesham Forest incident
Extra eyes would be appreciated on the article as this just appeared on the front page of the Telegraph newspaper. The usual suspects are likely to be all over it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Low frequency noise


The Hum as a title is blatant WP:SYNTH, no source uses it. A BBC article uses "the hum" uncapitalised in scare quotes and that's as close as it gets. The article has a history of being used to advance fringe views but is much improved of late. I removed some classic WP:FRINGE red flags like the claim that "those who cannot hear it" (i.e. the vast majority of people) and "some experts" (i.e. the ones published in reputable journals) are skeptical of its existence as a physical reality. I also moved it to low frequency noise which is the title used in an official British Government document, so at least has the distinction of being used by a reliable source without scare quotes.

You can guess what happened. Move reverted, removals of unreliable sources and weasel words reverted.

I have no patience with such idiocy, especially since there is a clear consensus in the AfD - even among some of the keep !voters - that there was a problem with the title and/or content, and a strong majority against the status quo. Guy (Help!) 20:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I remember seeing this come up a few times, but was there ever a conversation you could link to that pretty much hashed out that "the hum" and whatever variants was a fringe description or minority view at best? I get the feeling the current conversation you started has been had before, I'm not finding a lot in my quick glance. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:22, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/The Hum has some pretty robust views against the content then, and significant support for the idea that the title is WP:SYN, at least to my eyes. Guy (Help!) 12:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Vitalism = Pseudoscience....or not?
A rather aggressive editor has decided that the Vitalism article should no longer be included in Category:Pseudoscience. It's been there for a long time, until a few days ago when it was removed without regard to context or the sources in the article. I restored the status quo version and explained why to that editor. No problem.

Now another editor (who previously has defended pseudoscientific subjects) has aggressively undone my restoration and proclaimed that he and the other editor constitute a consensus, using very condescending language ("none of what you say makes sense to me, so I leave YOU out of the discussion"). There has been no discussion on the article's talk page.

He is also fighting a straw man in his comments and here. No one has tried to classify those scientists as pseudoscientists in that article, so he's tilting at windmills of his own creation.

It is still in the "Obsolete scientific theories" category. I suspect the best solution would be to have it in both categories (which has been the case for a long time), since they both apply. Without the PS category, which is backed up by sources in the article, we are ignoring vitalism's current status.

I am not edit warring and I'm not getting anywhere on his talk page, so more eyes and opinions need to be focused on the matter. -- Brangifer (talk) 07:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Hmmmm. He reverted my restoration of the category, referring to his Talk page ! -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 10:33, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Bullrangifer is wrong to claim that I have addressed him in this way ("none of what you say makes sense to me, so I leave YOU out of the discussion") - my talk page shows that I said "WHAT IF" I were to say this, (since you have dismissed my reasons as a "straw herring" or whatever).


 * The reason is quite clear - Vitalism is an important part of the history of science that was upheld until recently by some grade A scientists, such as Pasteur and Faraday, and some considerable philosophers such as Driesch and Bergson. It is still in use in psychology - at least in some metaphorical or virtual way - as in Freud's libido. It follows that the entire subject can not be called pseudoscience. The article is categorised as Obsolete science, and this is clearly indicated and explained in the article. Likewise, genuinely pseudoscientific presentations may be presented as such. But the whole idea of a life-force has had a respectable history in science, and so the entire article may not be so categorised. Redheylin (talk) 10:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Bullrangifer is also wrong to say that I have "aggressively undone my restoration and proclaimed that he and the other editor constitute a consensus". I have not been aggressive at all: I have not told him that I am going to ignore his reasons - he has done that to me. I have not said "ridiculous" and "nonsense" to Roxy the Dog - it is he who has said that to me. Both editors have keen personal interest in labelling things "pseudoscience", while I am an editor who has contributed to a wide range of science articles (certainly including a few early theorists of vitalism) without any trouble or reversions except with a few subjects that are the target of unreasonable ideologists of the Randi persuasion. To say that I have "previously defended pseudoscientific subjects" is untrue also - it is no more than an attempt to pre-judge the question, for which no solid reason has been presented apart from an over-zealous general skepticism that lacks perspective or awareness of the history of ideas. I pretty much wrote Vitalism in its present form, and the category was not present for a long time, and no consensus was obtained for adding it. Redheylin (talk) 11:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Furthermore - interested parties may consult my last few edits on scientific pages, which are standing perfectly well - Electric potential, Work (electrical), Thermodynamic system, History of physics, Classical element, Dark matter, Galaxy rotation curve are the latest. Redheylin (talk) 11:28, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The fact that you have some extant edits on a few pages, doesn't make your edits on Vitalism correct. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 13:38, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The fact that I DON'T have a long string of hostile edits on similar pages makes them likely to be. Redheylin (talk) 14:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

We're just respecting its historic and current status by including it in both categories, something which the sources confirm. Your disdain for James Randi is noted, which does place you in the pseudoscientific camp. Thanks for making that even more clear. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:35, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Post me if anyone says anything here, please, though your continued baiting, discourtesy and edit-warring suggests to me that you are not awaiting anything.... Redheylin (talk) 16:09, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * There is nothing inherently pseudoscientific in vitalism. It is simply a scientific theory that has failed to stand up to evidence. All outdated theories would have to have the pseudoscience category under this approach.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think there are any ideas that are inherently pseudoscientific. What makes something pseudoscientific is the (lack of) evidence, argumentation, and methodology that is used to support the idea. The important thing to realize is that "pseudoscience" as a term has its origins in mid-20th century thought and the modern and even post-modern evaluations of scientific knowledge. Ideas that were floating around in the early 20th Century and before are labeled "pseudoscientific" only to the extent that they were dismissed/superseded and continued to be promoted into the 20th and 21st centuries. Thus, N ray, phlogiston, and Neptunism are not pseudoscience because there aren't any people who are arguing that they are correct scientific claims. jps (talk) 20:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Pillars of Ashoka
"The Apocalypse of Peter makes reference to the covenant and lesson of the 10th pillar of Ashoka in relation to what happened to his teachings at the Council of Nicea. This reference is obscure to most Christians because a high percentage of them are unaware that Jesus fled with Thomas and other family members to India after recovering from the crucifixion. Jesus worked for a Buddhist king in Taxila on a reconstruction project (created in part by a major earthquake) and lived within Buddhist territory until his death at Srinagar." Dougweller (talk) 19:20, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Wow! Watching. Simonm223 (talk) 19:27, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 19:43, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * When did he make all the "Rambo" movies? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 20:02, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Planned attack by pushers of pseudoscience underway
We all know what red flags are, and when someone defending pseudoscience starts calling scientific skeptics and their organizations "pseudoskeptics", they have blown their cover. Only pushers of pseudoscience use the term in that manner. A planned attack by a new editor is underway, so please watchlist these and keep your eyes open:


 * Contributions of new PSI defending editor
 * History: CSI
 * History: Talk CSI
 * History: JSE
 * History: UFO
 * History: Talk UFO

Brangifer (talk) 06:12, 21 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Reverts at the ready! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 2 Adar 5775 16:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Braverman
The Eric R. Braverman article needs attention. The hagiography was written by a research assistant at his "PATH Foundation".

Braverman is a fringe doctor with many issues: unscientific and unethical practices, questionable claims and testing methods, seriously misleading billing methods, exorbitant fees, disciplinary issues involving medical boards and state Attorney General, lawsuits by patients, Better Business Bureau rating of "F", recent arrest, etc..

The current hagiography needs to be worked over and balanced with other aspects about his career and practices, per NPOV, which requires that documented controversies and criticism are included. Barrett has recently done a thorough in-depth investigation, using many RS which we can also use: Some Notes on Dr. Eric Braverman and his PATH Medical Clinic. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Villa Dunardi
A fringe-POV-slanted article about a non-notable Italian villa. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:18, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

List of alleged aircraft–UFO incidents and near misses
The majority of this article is unsourced or sourced to fringe sites e.g. "ufologie.patrickgross.org". Does this topic have sufficient notability for a list? Any alleged incidents covered in reliable sources could be included at list of reported UFO sightings - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:14, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I would suggest a merge and a close examination of the sources, since the list seems less than totally reliable. For one, it claims sightings over the "Zuiderzee" in 1942. However, the Zuiderzee ceased to exist in 1932, when the Afsluitdijk was completed. Kleuske (talk) 11:14, 23 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Articles for deletion/List of alleged aircraft–UFO incidents and near misses - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)


 * 100% agreement with Kleuske - and I said as much on the AFD. Simonm223 (talk) 17:38, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Biological transmutation
An article that could probably do with attention from WP:FTN regulars... AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:25, 13 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Rewritten. I only worked with what was already in the article so feel free to add more. I'd also suggest that the page should really be a redirect to Transmutation of species and the article moved to Biological transmutation (Louis Kervran) or a similar title.  Sunrise    (talk)  08:25, 13 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Also, a "Further reading" section I removed (the majority of which is fringe content) has been reverted back in by an IP.  Sunrise    (talk)  09:43, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * After notability is established fringe articles should describe the full absurdity of the proponents claims - however absurd. In doing so we must avoid presenting these materials in a way that lends false credibility to the topic. 84.106.11.117 (talk) 11:04, 13 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Transmutation of species has absolutly nothing to do with Biological transmutation84.106.11.117 (talk) 11:07, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's an implausible redirect (it's certainly the first thing I thought of when the name appeared here). AFAIK it's the only place that "transmutation" occurs as generally understood terminology in biology.  Sunrise    (talk)  04:26, 14 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it is pretty clear that only one person really has ever become famous for proposing this idea, so a redirect is appropriate: . jps (talk) 18:20, 13 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Geez, I know that DNA breaks down (mutates) over time, but this is akin to alchemy... --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 18:24, 13 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I've gone through the bio now as well, though I guess some reverts might be pending. The list of his works could probably be trimmed further. Also, in relation to this topic, I came across the Secret Life of Plants article which could also use some work.  Sunrise    (talk)  04:26, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This has been an issue for at least three years: Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_28 jps (talk) 13:41, 14 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The redirect/merge seems like the best solution. Mangoe (talk) 15:26, 14 February 2015 (UTC)


 * THe redirect's not bad. I'll note there's a few people even today still writing (obscure and seldom-read) papers arguing for this stuff.  They seem to be camped out on the edge of the cold-fusion/LENR field; they're the lunatic fringe's lunatic fringe.  (Jean-Paul Biberian, V.I. Vysotskii and A.A. Kornilova are three currently active names I was able to come up with.  Nevertheless, unless they (or others) are notable and noteworthy in their own right and for this specific topic, there's no reason to fiddle with the redirect.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:38, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Meditation cancer cures
Ainslie Meares is actually quite notable (though you wouldn't know that from the current article's sourcing). The current article has some fringe issues (e.g. "A very angry Meares, demanded that she revert to his procedures and his procedures alone. Soon her cancers were, once again, in full remission.") Relatedly, Ian Gawler had some association with Meares, and claims meditation can treat cancer. There've been some contested edits to this article (historically, and recently). More eyes could help. Alexbrn talk 09:40, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Well over half the Meares article is basically an essay based on his own writing, and I have removed it. No doubt this will be challenged. It read like a very bad essay on Curezone or something. Guy (Help!) 22:36, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

"Eco-imperialism" and related conspiracy theories
There are ongoing disputes about the viewpoint of this article and several related articles. See the main discussion here: Talk:Eco-imperialism. Jarble (talk) 02:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Environmental justice appears to be similarly biased. This section should be paraphrased unless we can verify that its assertions are accurate. Jarble (talk) 02:37, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I've suggested on page talk that this page be turned to a redirect to Environmental_movement Simonm223 (talk) 19:11, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * On which talk page was the suggestion made? Jarble (talk) 22:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The one for Eco-imperialism - and another user concurred before I was WP:BOLD and did just that. Simonm223 (talk) 23:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

UFORM
Articles for deletion/UFORM.

Comment if you will.

jps (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Dudley Dorito
Whimsical article, indeed, but I wonder if it is worthy of standalone coverage. Thoughts?

jps (talk) 14:18, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The Wolverhampton Express & Star certainly loved the story. Simonm223 (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2015 (UTC)


 * REDIRECTed to UFO sightings in the United Kingdom. Reports in a local paper only are not sufficient for a stand alone article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:39, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Chip Coffey Comment
See Talk:Chip Coffey. I noticed an editor created some draft revisions in their sandbox, but the sandbox was blanked by another editor due to "WP:UNDUE and WP:BLP violations". I've looked over the deleted sandbox draft - I do see that a Criticism section had been added - but can't find any undue weight or BLP vios. Am I missing something? - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:48, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Eliza Jane Scovill
An RfC has been started on whether to include the credentials of a post mortem report written by an AIDS denialist. Scovill was the daughter of Christine Maggiore who did not treat her Scovill for HIV, and the office autopsy showed a HIV related cause of death. Maggiore asked fellow denialist Al-Bayati to write a report (which concluded this was not a HIV-related death); the question of the RfC is whether or not to include his qualifications in this article. Further input welcome. Yobol (talk) 18:38, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Pokotia Monolith
Definitely needs eyes, just had to revert some serious fringe stuff. Dougweller (talk) 10:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Noting that that's the 2nd new editor in the last few days. I can't find any mentions of this outside the fringe. Dougweller (talk) 14:09, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the JAAVSO doing publishing archaeology monographs? That is WAAY outside of the scope of their journal. Perhaps someone should e-mail them and see what's up. It's kinda out of the ordinary. jps (talk) 16:47, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * It's a bit odd, but on the other hand, what else do we have that is even vaguely an RS? Dougweller (talk) 21:27, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Barney and Betty Hill
This article reads like copy from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Can we have someone go through and eliminate the sensationalism and unverified stuff?

jps (talk) 22:11, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The article seems to have been moved (by copy - and - paste, so that its history did not get moved), without any discussion that I can find, from Betty and Barney Hill abduction. The associated talk page was not  moved, and is still at Talk:Betty and Barney Hill abduction. Cardamon (talk) 23:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Nice catch. Tagging it for history merging. Kolbasz (talk) 17:58, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

UFO Update
Articles for deletion/UFO Update

jps (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

List of observations of solar and lunar transits of unknown objects

 * Now may you please review List of observations of solar and lunar transits of unknown objects? - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:27, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * That list looks marginally okay to me, though the sourcing for some could be improved. There should be some acknowledgment that in the days before image capture, these reports were all unverifiable. Distant birds and even insects can cause peculiar transits for eyepiece observing. jps (talk) 17:53, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it should be deleted. Its creator has a history of making these weird agglomeration and odd articles, and I don't see how these things have anything much to do with one another. Mangoe (talk) 20:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Article reads like someone was trying to put a Fortean spin on the topic, however I have no way of knowing if this is actually a notable part of astronomy or not. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I removed the unreferenced ones, those referenced to Fort (not a reliable source for this kind of article), and one self-published reference. What's left is primary-sourced and doesn't really establish importance IMO. Guy (Help!) 21:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Articles for deletion/List of observations of solar and lunar transits of unknown objects Mangoe (talk) 22:20, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

How do I find out ... ?
If D. Ullman is banned, restricted or otherwise sanctioned by or from wikipedia? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 16:56, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * See Requests_for_arbitration/Homeopathy. It's not too hard to do a simple search for it, is it? - A1candidate  17:01, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks A1c, I initially thought you'd done something useful for the first time, but no, that would be too much to expect. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 17:03, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Dullman has been topic banned from homeopathy, broadly construed, for over five years. He makes very occasional appearances to pity himself and encourage fellow travelers.  Best to ignore him.  2600:1008:B102:5115:B81A:B4AB:F712:98A9 (talk) 19:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * He made an appearance today, which prompted my question. I couldn't find anything about the broadly construed hpathy topic ban though. Thanks. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 19:39, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * See Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive558. The topic ban used to be listed under "Enforcement" on the page A1candidate linked to, but the log of blocks, bans, and restrictions there was deleted in January last year. You can still see it via the history tab.  Brunton (talk) 14:29, 7 March 2015 (UTC)


 * To see if someone is sanctioned from some source, your best bet is to look at their talk page history for the notification. For discretionary sanctions under arbcom, see Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions/Log, all sanctions are logged here. Second Quantization (talk) 13:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * That was a 2009 ban, so you go to the link above, click on 2009, and look at the history. But a look at their talk page was faster. Dougweller (talk) 13:45, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

List of paranormal magazines
Does this title sound to you like it's magazines published in another dimension?

Anyhoo, I think that it only fair that we include magazines like Skeptical Inquirer in such a list. Don't you?

jps (talk) 22:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Two responses.
 * 1) Sure, as that magazine relates to the paranormal.
 * 2) More important, though, is maybe considering whether to perhaps just delete the article altogether. As it is, I am not seeing that there are any clearly established independent sources which support the inclusion of the entries already listed, which raises both serious WP:NOTABILITY and WP:SYNTH issues. Maybe the best option would be to include it in the article if the article is found to survive AfD, which at this point is to my eyes a very open question. John Carter (talk) 22:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)


 * It is also I think worth noting that "paranormal" does not appear to be a topic heading in the Gale Directory I am currently looking at, and, for that matter, neither does "occult." "Parapsychology" however does appear to be the most proximate subject heading I find there. Maybe it might make sense to request the article be moved to something like "List of parapsychology and the occult magazines" or something to that effect. John Carter (talk) 16:08, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Boldly go forth, as far as I'm concerned. jps (talk) 15:32, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Tbilisi-sighting
Aside from a WP:MOS-violating title, the article seems like it probably shouldn't exist, but I thought I'd ask here first.

jps (talk) 11:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * A tiny bit of news coverage, not enough for its own article, so redirected to UFO sightings in Russia.


 * But Tbilisi is in Georgia. jps (talk)
 * Moved to UFO sightings in Belarus - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:01, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ummm, that's not Georgia either. Minsk is... Sorry. Kleuske (talk) 09:53, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is a really confusing account. Not sure why it was titled "Tbilisi sighting". Can't even determine if the redirect is worth keeping (is anyone in their right mind going to search for such a thing?) *shrug* WP:Redirects are cheap. jps (talk) 15:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

UFO linkfarm in need of pruning
There was a link farm in the article that I moved to the talk page so that usable material could be incorporated using potential sources. Talk:Berwyn_Mountain_UFO_incident But it has turned into a bigger clutter on the talk page with anons adding more and more links.

Can someone take a peek and trim out those that have no possible use for an article? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  01:15, 9 March 2015 (UTC)


 * - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:14, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Harbour Mille incident
Five years ago, the CBC wrote a few articles about something that was flying through the air. Pictures look like a missile. Denial that it was a missile may be simply part of military secrecy. Regardless, the article seems like it will probably go nowhere and was likely created in an abundance of WP:RECENTISM fury. Delete? Redirect?

jps (talk) 20:09, 9 March 2015 (UTC)


 * After some initial Canadian media attention, the story sunk into oblivion, leaving the stand alone article doomed to eternal stubhood. No lasting notability outside the UFO fan bubble. Redirected and merged to UFO sightings in Canada. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:08, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory
A recent major edit of the article requires some additional eyes to review it, as there is an accompanying wall o' words on the Talk page protesting the use of the term 'conspiracy theorist' to describe 9-11 truthers, etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 03:23, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * On closer examination, it seems to be part of an ongoing effort by one editor to remove the phrase "conspiracy theorist" from Wikipedia articles.This example edit is typical. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:17, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes this is absolutely right. Im going to remove term "conspiracy theorist" wherever it pops up as long the claim not covered by a cite. Just recently we did speak about the use of such term at DRN.To make it clear Im citing DRN Volunteer Bejnar: "Conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist" can be used in a pejorative way. Any contested use should be supported by a reliable source, and pejoritive uses should be avoided per Wikipedia's guideline at WP:Manual of Style/Words to watch: There are no forbidden words or expressions on Wikipedia, but certain expressions should be used with care, because they may introduce bias. Strive to eliminate expressions that are flattering, disparaging, vague, clichéd, or that endorse a particular point of view. --Bejnar (talk) 05:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)" See also his talk page on that: "Indeed. When neutral reliable sources consistently agree that a person is a "conspiracy theorist" it is not inappropriate to use the label; however, in most instances that is not the case and "conspiracy theorist" is used disparagingly, and hence should be avoided in accordance with the logic expressed in the WP:Tone essay. --Bejnar (talk) 16:53, 22 February 2015 (UTC)" --- Global warming conspiracy theorists typically... -  this was claimed to be from Latours article (see pdf in refs) but it was totally wrong cite, misused by whoever was editor here, possible in bad faith. I explained on articles talk too Spearmind (talk) 14:38, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You are taking your crusade way too far. Yes, the term can sometimes be applied derogatorily, but the fact is that the term "conspiracy theory" is not necessarily derogatory... it can neutrally be applied to any theory that proposes that a conspiracy has taken place. That's the actual dictionary definition of the term. It does not necessarily mean that the theory is nuts or that the theorist is a nutter. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Conspiracy theory is judgmental. That 9/11 was the result of a conspiracy by al Qaeda is mainstream, that it was the result of a conspiracy by the New World Order is a conspiracy theory.  But there is no  problem in using the terminology provided that is what mainstream sources say.  TFD (talk) 16:38, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * TFD has a point above. "Conspiracy theory" in practical terms seems to share certain characteristics with "pseudoscience" and "new religious movement", although while academia has decided that NRM is a form of more acceptable PC-term for the earlier "cult" or "sect," there doesn't seem yet to be a more PC-version of the term Conspiracy theory. All three cases however seem to share the problem that individuals object to the usage of the terms here. In all three cases I think the best way to go is the same - find reference works relating specifically to the terms and articles in academic journals which use the term to describe distinct subjects and just repeat, without OR or POV, in lists here the subjects they so describe. Also consult other reference sources and/or journals and look to see if they use the same terms in articles related to those subjects and to what level of WEIGHT and follow their lead. If it winds up being the case that certain groups or topics that individuals personally disagree should be included in such lists or described by those terms, well, that's life. John Carter (talk) 18:30, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The use of these terms has been discussed lots of times (check the archives)... and they have been upheld every time they were discussed. The theory that "9/11 was the result of a conspiracy by al Qaeda" is, in fact, a "conspiracy theory".  Yes... it happens to be a conspiracy theory that is accepted by the mainstream... but that acceptance does not change the fact that it is a "conspiracy theory" none-the-less.  The same is true for conspiracy theories that are only accepted by fringe nutters. As long as a theory invloves the idea that a conspiracy is/was occurring... that theory is - by definition - a "conspiracy theory".  Yes, I do understand that term can be viewed as being derisive ... but the fact remains that the definition of the term is much broader than that. The term itself does not mean "nutty" or even "fringe".  It actually has a very neutral definition. Blueboar (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No, the "al Qaeda theory" is not a conspiracy theory, because that's not how the phrase is used. You may as well accuse the Republicans of engaging in a "conspiracy" to defeat the Democrats, or Coca Cola to be involved in a conspiracy to undermine Pepsi Cola. After all, they meet in secret to discuss these projects all the time. Al Qaeda's behaviour was essentially no different, and from their point of view it was a military operation - no more of a 'conspiracy' than the Bombing of Dresden. The outcome of all the discussions I have read on this topic has been that the term conspiracy theory cannot meanigfully or usefully be extended to cover every example of plotting, as it then becomes utterly meaningless. User:BruceGrubb was topic banned because of his persistent attempts to push this line. Phrases mean what they are used in discourse to mean, not what the combination of words could imply. To take a few well known examples, anti-Semitism does not mean opposition to all Semites, and anti-Americanism does not include opposition to all the countries of the Americas. Likewise, AIDS is not any syndrome of immune deficiency. Paul B (talk) 21:50, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Conceding that the term "conspiracy theory" has a negative connotation as applied in most ordinary discourse, and that we should therefore be circumspect in our use of it, the "crusade" being discussed above is going too far. The idea that the moonshot was faked is a conspiracy theory in the commonly accepted use of the term. And if an attempt were made to remove that description on the grounds that it was not clearly cited, despite the fact that the article's content clearly demonstrates as much, and is thoroughly sourced, I would likely say it was contrary to both WP:BLUE and WP:COMMONSENSE. That kind of blanket attack is at best silly and at worst disruptive. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:40, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We don't need sources for exact phrases when those phrases are simply standard terms for the relevant concept. We don't need the actual word "fringe" to be used in an RS to justify calling a theory "fringe". If they say its marginal, irrational, dingbat, preposterous (etc), it's fringe. Paul B (talk) 01:06, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * ... and in fact WP:TONE supports describing those usages as Fringe. I think the issue Spearmind has is from the judgement implied by the words "conspiracy theorist", but that implied judgement isn't an issue if it's the reliable source doing it.
 * That is, calling someone a conspiracy theorist is normative in the sense that adhering to a conspiracy theory is seen as a negative (at least to me). So a believer in a conspiracy theory can be called a conspiracy theorist, since the judgement is implied. It's not the editor adding in any extra judgement that the sources don't.
 * Also, a small note to quickly demarcate conspiracies and conspiracy theories. An actual conspiracy is not like a conspiracy theory. Here theory is used in the colloquial sense, as an idea someone has. A conspiracy is any secret agreement seeking to break the law or do undesirable things. A conspiracy theory is an idea someone has about the existence of an (as of yet) undisclosed secret agreement but for which the conspiracy theorist can not perform any convincing demonstration of how they have knowledge of the event. Second Quantization (talk) 23:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it might be reasonable to in a few circumstances modify the phrasing to say "a supporter of a conspiracy theory that has received support in..." might be a reasonable way to differentiate between the tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists and the supporters of more reasonable conspiracy theories. John Carter (talk) 16:32, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem is that editors frequently disagree over whether a specific conspiracy theory is "tin-foil hat" or "reasonable". Advocates will always argue that the theory they are advocating is reasonable... and will say the conspiracy is absolute fact and not "just a theory".  The only way to remain neutral is to use the dictionary definition of the term... if a theory proposes that a conspiracy took place... no matter how nutty or how reasonable it is... it can and should be described as being a "conspiracy theory", and those who propose/advocate such theories can and should be called "conspiracy theorists". Blueboar (talk) 16:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * But there are some differences in the level of independent non-nutjob support for them. So, for instance, I've seen enough sources discussing the possible assassination of John Paul I for trying to control the Vatican bank that I think most people would count that as more of a minority-type conspiracy theory than a nutjob conspiracy theory. And, also, there are at least a few independent reliable sources, like a few reference works on conspiracy theories, to provide some indication of just how far into the woo zone some of them might be. So far as I remember there are maybe at least three "reference" type works on conspiracy theories, and the way they present the various theories and relative woo-factor they seem to ascribe to them are probably good indicators of how far out there some of them might, comparatively, be. John Carter (talk) 17:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Burzynski
This article is seeing a flurry of activity recently, with questions on Talk which touch on fringe/neutrality issues. As always, expertise from fringe-savvy editors can help. Alexbrn talk 13:47, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Cucurbita
Newly-featured article, has a section entitled "Medicinal uses" which is the usual small-study alt-med stuff. It'd be fine if it was entitled "Uses in alternative medicine", which is what I've tried to change it to, but it's hardly a mainstream medicine, and it's downright misleading to call it such. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, bugger. I started checking the sources. To quote Talk:Cucurbita, "It's particularly bad when one of the sentences - the one on eye health - was, when I checked not justified by the sources [...] :I just checked the sources for the Traditional Chinese Medicine section. Abstract of http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-73739-8_51 : "It is not officially listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia." [...]"


 * OH, you mean PUMPKINS. Now I understand. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 15:36, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Eternity is not endless time...eternity is the gradient of total potential energy, down which matter flows like a river.
An IP editor has rather aggressively made some edits to Eternity which seem to favor a metaphysical viewpoint over a more general mainstream viewpoint. The edits have also introduced WP:LEAD problems, overquoting and questionable assertions made in Wikipedia's voice. A few more eyes on the article would be appreciated.- MrX 01:11, 15 March 2015 (UTC)


 * That's Systemizer / 8i347g8gl -- similar IPs and characteristic nuttiness, along with "♦" in citations. An indefatigable edit-warrior, this person has been adding nonsense for years, and recently caused the indef semi-protection of Terence McKenna. According to the first SPI there had once been a range block. Manul ~ talk 11:34, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've reverted the latest and blocked the 91.122.0.0/21 range for three months. If they simply hop to a different IP, I'll semi. Bishonen &#124; talk 13:03, 15 March 2015 (UTC).
 * Thanks everyone for your help and advice.- MrX 13:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * So, another St Petersburg proxy engaged after a few minutes. I've semi'd for a month and blocked the 89.110.0.0/19 range, after consulting the SPI to look for the siblings. I don't suppose blocks can really do much here, even range blocks, because all the available ranges are merely the gradient of total potential nuttiness down which IPs flow like a river. But the semi should help for a while. Bishonen &#124; talk 14:31, 15 March 2015 (UTC).
 * I would like to comment that I do think that if content that dwells on the metaphysical explanation on the subject can contribute to the article, then it should be included, so long as there are proper sources that aren't OR. But I do agree that the pointy nature of such edits are quite annoying. Optakeover  (Talk)  16:18, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "the gradient of total potential nuttiness down which IPs flow like a river" ← Priceless.- MrX 16:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Now that you mentioned it, that sounds pretty ridiculous. Optakeover  (Talk)  17:28, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

This seems like a poetic description of the Second Law of Thermodynamics; time is a gradient of increasing entropy, and eternity is the point at which entropy would be infinite. I don't think this belongs in the article. This article can define "eternity" is and give various interpretations of it from established religious and philosophical perspectives, but it cannot try to guide the reader towards understanding the term "in Wikipedia's voice." Roches (talk) 17:23, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Houston, we have a stargate
Ranmasu Uyana - some sources for the site Or an ancient world map? - maybe a useful source. Dougweller (talk) 20:03, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The page only has one source, which is a problem, but plenty exist for a motivated editor to use. It's a tourist destination apparently? It seems to be a major cause of people being interested in the topic. As long as the article doesn't consider the possibility that this is actually of extraterrestrial origin, it doesn't look like a fringiness problem to use reliable sources that some people think it is. Rhoark (talk) 20:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Leaning Tower of Nevyansk
18th century Russian tower with a murky history. Flagged since 2012 for possible OR and definite tone/style issues, but could use some eyes from here perhaps: the tone wanders perilously close to Coast to Coast AM-style 'scientists still don't know why' at times. Hatchetfish (talk) 04:38, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

G. Edward Griffin
There are a lot of arugments on the talkpage and in the recent edit history about this particular biography and how exactly he should be characterized and how the beliefs he promotes in his books should be outlined. These beliefs range from creationism to 9/11-Trutherism to laetrile-cancer-cure-promotion to chemtrail-paranoia. Warning, has imposed a very strict 1RR rule on the article.

jps (talk) 16:51, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * There's also been a lot going on with some previous history at the article and this board for those here who either haven't seen it yet or don't remember. Some actions there might be better brought up at WP:AE in terms of behavior related to fringe topics, so just be mindful there's been some talk of that as well at . More editors experienced in fringe topics, especially within BLPs would be helpful. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:14, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Seconded. One editor, Atsme, who is generally a delightful person, seems fixated on the idea that recent studies (mainly from a single group in China) invalidate the consensus view that laetrile is quackery, and validate Griffin's thesis in his book World Without Cancer, to the effect that amygdalin is rich in a vitamin, B17, lack of which causes cancer, and that the medical establishment suppresses knowledge of this (and the consequential curative properties of laetrile) in order to protect its income. I could really do with someone who has much greater reserves of tact and diplomacy than I, to explain the realities of Wikipedia policy on fringe medical ideas and conspiracy theories. Frankly, I think we'd be better off without the article. There are virtually no mainstream sources, though he is popular with websites like whale.to, mercola.com, Natural News, David Icke's forums, even Stormfront. Most of his books and "films" (none, I think, with any theatrical release) are self-published, those that are not are published by the John Birch Society. Mainstream sources tend not to bother looking at Truthers who advocate chemtrails and sundry other silliness. I think it's deletable, but no doubt this would be as unpopular as mentioning that he's known mainly for conspiracy theories. Guy (Help!) 22:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Is this person even notable enough for an article? I know that Glenn Beck has promoted him, but that alone isn't enough to establish notability. He's off-handedly mentioned in a few academic treatises documenting far-right-wing ideology and conspiracy theories, but nothing rising to the level of WP:BIO's exhortation to "significant" coverage. jps (talk) 14:14, 28 February 2015 (UTC)


 * After much discussion, I have proceeded with an AfD: Articles for deletion/G. Edward Griffin (4th nomination). jps (talk) 14:59, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I actually just discovered this discussion after reviewing the progress at the AfD, or I would have responded much sooner. Was there a notice posted somewhere that I've overlooked? In defense of my position as an involved editor trying to make Griffin a GA, I have neither suggested suppressing factually accurate material for inclusion in this BLP, nor have I suggested adding information that wasn't factually accurate or verifiable. I have advocated for policy compliance with NPOV and BLP, and will continue to do so. It appears there may be some misunderstanding with regards to policy taking precedence over guidelines. WP:FRINGE is a guideline not a policy, and within that guideline is WP:FRINGEBLP which is a circular reference to WP:BLP policy. I am not fixated on anything other than strict adherence to BLP policy. I neither support laetrile/amygdalin, nor oppose it. In fact, Guy even admitted to amygdalin's potential as a cancer treatment on his own TP, February 17, 2015, but it's irrelevant to this discussion. It is not our job as editors to promote books, debunk theories, condemn treatments, etc. We write about what RS have said, we follow WP:WEIGHT, and we make sure the information is Verifiable but not false.

The problem with the above arguments for deletion are explained in WP:AUTHOR No. 3 which clearly states (my bold): The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews. Griffin has authored two well-known works, Creature and WWC, that qualify his notability as an author. Both books have been cited on academic lists of books to read, and have received notable attention and reviews in RS around the world, regardless of whether or not you agree with the content of those books. The tenacious attempts to deny his notability despite the unambiguous guidelines which clearly support his notability, the prior 3 failed attempts at AfD, the current consensus, and a quick comparison of other AfD requests for other articles gives this AfD an appearance of being dubious. Refusal to acknowledge and respect the long-standing consensus of the community to KEEP it is also somewhat disconcerting. Perhaps the current AfD will provide the answers. Atsme &#9775;  Consult  19:14, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Extra eyes please
I am having problems with an editor on the article Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am'‎ by one of our recurring topics here, Mr. G. I. Gurdjieff, who is persistently reverting deletions of unsourced material about a book whose notability is in doubt. The article has been tagged for no sources for six years. The editor added a few links to sources that are patently not RS with no inline citations. Some extra eyes would be appreciated. I don't want to get into an edit war. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The material has been re-added (again) and due to 3RR I can't revert it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * If the problem is principally user behavior, is the board you need. If its a question about whether something is a reliable source, use the reliable source noticeboard. If there's a question about whether something is a fringe theory or what the due weight is for a fringe theory, you're in the right place, but will need to explain the situation a bit better. Rhoark (talk) 21:44, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Shockingly, there are currently no less than three reports on this matter at WP:AN3. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

FYI... Articles for deletion/Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am' -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Is reiki fringe and/or pseudoscience
A new flare up at reiki. Are various sources sufficient to use the word "pseudoscience"? Does WP:MEDRS allow us to discount sources saying it is nonsense (after all, the sources are not review articles...)? Geeze, it's a "spiritual practice", so we cannot dare say qi/ki doesn't exist. A little experienced help would be appreciated. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 00:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We need some new eyes as the current ones, myself included, are being discounted. --Ronz (talk) 00:23, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This appears to be canvassing. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:44, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This is an appropriate use of the noticeboard, but thanks for helping make the point for us. --Ronz (talk) 19:48, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * How is this canvassing? "This page is for requesting input on possible fringe theories."  --Gaff (talk) 19:54, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. If this these types of actions were canvassing all of the content notice boards would have closed years ago since virtualy all the posts to them would have been banned.--174.91.184.226 (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd like to help! Just saying as much.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 19:09, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:PARITY. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:43, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Skepticism vs. denial in climate change politics
There is an ongoing definitional problem that Wikipedia has been spectacularly unsuccessful in solving.

Climate scientists, science educators, and skeptical organizations have decried the use of the term "climate change skeptic" to describe those who are properly climate change deniers. 

Yet, Wikipedia persists with the following categories:


 * Category:Climate change skepticism


 * Category:Climate change skeptics


 * Category:Climate change skeptics (politicians)


 * Category:Climate change skeptics (scientists)

By endorsing these designations and not the "denier" designation, Wikipedia has firmly taken the side of climate change deniers. Why is that? What is the remedy?

jps (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Are there good sources which address this terminological question? They might offer a way through ... Alexbrn talk 17:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Not really. There are just polemic rants from one group or another. There is no "neutral" agreed-upon designation for such groups. "Climate change skeptics" are the preferred names of the deniers while "climate change deniers" are the preferred names for those who oppose them. I guess this is somewhat similar to the term of art pro-life to indicate anti-abortion activists. jps (talk) 18:15, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * To be clear, there are some climate change deniers and even some who are opposed to them who think the designation "denier" is needlessly inflammatory. However, the term "denier" is only inflammatory in the sense of it carrying implications that are not necessarily intended. Even worse, the most reliable sources don't have a consistent way of describing these groups or people who espouse such ideas. "Denial" is the closest thing we've got to what the preponderance of sources use as a designation when they are trying to be deliberate. Still, sources from the sociological literature, for example, use both designations in different contexts since both designations are used. It's something Wikipedia is not equipped to handle. jps (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Look through this list for sources discussing this subject? jps (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)


 * There is a definite problem here in that a fair number of the scientists could be legitimately be characterized as skeptics rather than deniers (e.g. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen). Mangoe (talk) 20:56, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Arguing that the models can't be verified seems like straight up denialism to me, considering the models are verified by ensuring they can predict past events and also earlier climate models have been checked for the success of their . Second Quantization (talk) 00:25, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Sonja... there are many scientists who are skeptical of specific models and claims, but accept others. Which models a scientist supports plays a huge role in determining his/her views on subsidiary questions such as whether climate change is driven by man-made factors vs. natural factors (or a mix of both), how dire the situation is, what we should do about it, whether we can do anything about it, etc. etc. etc.
 * In many ways, the climate change debate reminds me of a religious dispute... you have the BIG disagreement between believers and non-believers (acceptors and deniers)... but then you also have smaller denominational disagreements among the believers, over questions of dogmatic details - with accusations of "heresy" (ie "denial") being tossed around by the various denominations at anyone who doesn't fully agree with their particular version of the dogma. Blueboar (talk) 01:32, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen is a classic pseudoskeptic, a social scientist or political scientists who feels she knows physical science better than physical scientists. When asked about the publication in the Spring of 2003 of a revised version of the paper at the center of the Soon and Baliunas controversy, she said, "I'm following my political agenda -- a bit, anyway. But isn't that the right of the editor?" . . dave souza, talk 08:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC) [added italicised words for clarification + missing sig, dave souza, talk 19:35, 14 March 2015 (UTC)]
 * That's a common misconception. ALL climate models worthy of the name (either based on physics, or "toy" models that have physically realistic parameters) give essentially the same result regarding anthropogenically-induced warming. They differ around the edges on various things but the basics are firm.
 * This is not newfangled stuff. Tyndall discovered the main greenhouse gases in 1859 and Arrhenius made the first prediction of temperature change from doubled CO2 back in 1896. The physics are so robust that his result is only a little outside of what is now regarded as the "likely" range of climate sensitivity. So this is old, established science -- in the past century we've just been refining the details.
 * Getting back to the original question... My impression is that "denier" is rapidly overtaking "skeptic" in the media. I realize that I'm not a WP:RS (smiley) but it might be possible to find someone who tracks such things. Note also several scholars prefer the use of "contrarian" as being less loaded than "denier", e.g., . Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I prefer the term "Harbingers Of The Endarkenment" which I think all wiki eds should be obliged to use henceforth. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 12:40, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

In all seriousness, however, we don't seem to have a good way to deal with this situation. What we've done is essentially adopt the propaganda of the contrarians (I don't think, except for perhaps Richard Lindzen, there are any deniers who are fine with the "contrarian" designation). One thing that dawns on me is that the lot of them are opposed to climate science consensus. So Opposition to scientific consensus on climate change would actually be a NPOV article title. We could subsume all the categories under that neutral designator Category:Opposition to scientific consensus on climate change and remove the "naming" problem. Would that be a good way of doing it? jps (talk) 13:15, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it would be better... but we still have the issue of how to treat those who are not necessarily opposed to the scientific consensus, but who still question some of the data and conclusions that are accepted by the consensus. I think these people are properly called "skeptics", rather than "deniers" or "opponents". Blueboar (talk) 15:16, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Same problem: all scientists question the data and conclusions that are accepted [provisionally] as the consensus, pseudosceptics assert that the consensus is wrong without going through the proper scientific process. Unlike the fake "skeptics", scientific skeptics publish their analysis and data in peer reviewed publications, and help to form the changing consensus. Fake skeptics misuse the label, but don't do the work properly. . dave souza, talk 19:27, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think at some point you have to bring the IPCC into it. As the UN body tasked to provide "a clear and up to date view of the current state of scientific knowledge relevant to climate change," their current Fifth Assessment Report has to be seen as representing 'the mainstream.' There will be people who think that the UN is a conspiracy by lizards to take away the freedoms of their favourite political party, but for the rest of us, it is not really valid to be 'skeptical' about the legitimacy of mainstream climate science, as summarised by the UN body. Wikipedia should acknowledge this explicitly, without mealy-mouthed false balance. --Nigelj (talk) 20:21, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * (e-c) I could live with the variant proposed above. While Blueboar has a point, he seems to be equating "questioning" data, which scientists regularly do in general, with questioning the results of multiple independent studies. Now, there might be a few people of at best marginal scientific qualifications out there, like me, who might say that they don't question the evidence of global warming as anthropologically induced, but might say they haven't seen sufficient evidence to indicate that the primary reason for the existing global warming is necessarily human input. They might simply ascribe it to the earth coming closer to returning to its more average warmer temperature, and note that the earth has actually, apparently, been marginally cooler for the past few hundred years than normal. I suppose for such cases, if the scientific community has many of them, I dunno, "Opposition to the theory of human impact on climate change" or "Skeptics of the..." might be acceptable, if unfortunately way more longwinded than even I generally like. John Carter (talk) 20:28, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In response to some of the points made by Blueboar above - that there are people who question some of the data and conclusions that are accepted by the consensus - the question we editors have to ask is which data and conclusions. If the current IPCC report says that the data is sketchy or the conclusions unclear in a certain area, then it is good science to question them. However, in relation to the point Blueboar raised earlier ("whether climate change is driven by man-made factors vs. natural factors") then the report is clear and ascribes a very high degree of certainly to the worldwide findings. Denying that climate change is mostly human caused at this stage is virtually unsupportable. --Nigelj (talk) 20:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I note you hedge with "mostly" and "virtually". This must mean you are a denier. Blueboar (talk) 22:03, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that helps us decide the names of categories. It's almost as if you'd rather discuss your views on climate change (or perhaps mine) than how we should present the topic in the encyclopedia. --Nigelj (talk) 22:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * My point is that we need to be careful not to be overly broad in labeling people as "deniers"... when in fact they are not... "skeptics" is a valid term for those who do agree with most of the IPCC conclusions, but may question some of the specifics. Save the term "Denier" for those who really do deny that climate change exists. Blueboar (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The issue is that "skeptics" in that definition includes [most or all] mainstream scientists: for example, Michael E. Mann describes himself as a skeptic, and in recent papers questions tree rings as an annual proxy record of termperature changes. He's solidly mainstream, and indeed his work is [unscientifically] denounced by Richard A. Muller who has been seen as part of the fake skeptic camp, though renounced part of that camp's denial of temperature changes when his Berkeley Earth project produced unexpected results. To the chagrin of Anthony Watts (blogger), a denier who describes himeslf as a skeptic. Denial is a spectrum, in the less clear cases unscientific opposition to the IPCC consensus is better called contrarian. . . dave souza, talk 06:10, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

People who question basic facts of climate change as outlined by the IPCC -- that the average global temperature is increasing primarily due to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations caused by human activity -- are not skeptics in the scientific skepticism sense. They are either ignorant or in denial. All of the articles in the above categories basically include those who "question" those basic facts. So we should not use "skeptic" or derivatives in the category names. What words we should use is what we need to decide. jps (talk) 22:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Acknowledging the probable reasonableness of the above, I guess, although this is probably going on a tangent not particularly relevant to this noticeboard, I would be curious on what basis that statement is made. Like I said, not disagreeing with it, but at least so far as I remember, and I obviously could be wrong, there might not be necessarily enough raw information available on changes in climate over the long term on a planetary scale in a broad sense outside from our one planet in the one period of recent recorded climate information to provide enough of a basis for conclusions along those lines. Granted, I am about 3 decades out of date here, but there didn't seem to be enough data back when I was in school to make a conclusion drawn on the data then available necessarily reliable. That information, however, clearly could have changed since I last really studied the topic. John Carter (talk) 22:42, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The basis for the statement would surely be WP:WEIGHT, specifically WP:PSCI and WP:GEVAL. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report is currently the best overall assessment of the state of science on the topic, have a look in the Summary for Policymakers for an outline of the info you want. You'd need a very good source for any other conclusions. . dave souza, talk 23:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "I would be curious on what basis that statement is made" Which statement specifically? "enough raw information available on changes in climate over the long term" Some methods are mentioned at: Temperature record for the long term (depending on what you count as long) but that seems to me to be irrelevant to the current discussion. Of course, a large historical record of temperatures isn't needed to make and test the current models which are based on basic science. It's for the same reason one doesn't need to know the history of an atom to model what happens when it gets hit by another atom; it's quite frankly irrelevant, if you know the current state of a physical system you can calculate how it further evolves in time provided you include the right processes.
 * "like me, who might say that they don't question the evidence of global warming as anthropologically induced, but might say they haven't seen sufficient evidence to indicate that the primary reason for the existing global warming is necessarily human input." I don't get this. Models which take into account human emissions of CO2 predict the warming we have experienced, those that don't, don't. "They might simply ascribe it to the earth coming closer to returning to its more average warmer temperature, and note that the earth has actually, apparently, been marginally cooler for the past few hundred years than normal." If temperatures are changing there has to be a mechanism and that can also be modelled, then you can make predictions or see if it can accurately predict past warming (say 1970 to 2010). Temperatures don't just magically return to "normal" all by themselves (and they aren't, see ). Second Quantization (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Decades ago, people had a hard time coming to terms with radiative forcing, but it's pretty well understood these days that the heating effect expected from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations accounts for the global warming that is observed on decadal timescales. The surprise for many is how large the effect is, but the consensus is strong that it is the size we observe it to be.
 * I will grant, however, that many are not necessarily aware of the facts surrounding these issues, so it is possible that there are those who "question" because they simply don't know. Distinguishing between which is which is not something we're equipped to do either, so simply saying "opposition to..." and leaving it at that seems to me to be a good solution. jps (talk) 01:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that the commercially funded disinformation campaigns and the politically motivated media coverage may still be too influential, especially in the USA, that while we have to discuss this with people with only a passing interest, and those who have taken little up to date scientific input recently, we are, sadly going to get nowhere. Those who feel that there is still a legitimate scientific debate going on have been wrong for decades now, but they still represent a loud and vocal minority, especially as I say in the US, and this will always scupper a clear consensus here in WP discussion for some time to come, I fear. --Nigelj (talk) 11:59, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The issue is editors: here we have an editor reverting to self-contradictory wording which equates skepticism to belief, when the sources don't make any statement that the subject is skeptical. Common misuse of language. . . dave souza, talk 15:09, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In addition to the disinformation campaigns and politically motivated coverage, unfortunately, I think that the topic has also tended to at least some of us older editors, who might be among the more active "disbelievers," to have suffered in their eyes the same fate as a lot of millenarian movements who find that their predictions don't come true. A lot of us remember Ted Danson's statements which, as they were presented at the time, were basically seen as predicting the end of the world by the end of the 20th century. That didn't, of course, happen. Michael Crichton's State of Fear played a large role in the development of the thinking some individuals like myself as well, particularly the implications that the idea may have had some sort of less-than-beneficent governmental support. The Global warming conspiracy theory, unfortunately, particularly with the apparent "failed predictions" of Danson and the like, coupled with the distrust of authority of all kinds in general over the past decades in the West, does, I think, unfortunately, play a big role in a lot of sometimes goofy ideas going around there. This one included. Michael Baigent comes to mind as an equivalent in the field of religion. I acknowledge that this comment is completely off topic, and say this not necessarily in the defense of those who like me still harbor some lingering suspicions. Having said all that off-topic b.s., I guess I should apologize to those who actually have done more research and know more about the topic than me, and, maybe, ask if the sources exist to describe the millenial aspects of the early global warming advocates somewhere. John Carter (talk) 19:12, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ted Danson's comments were not specifically about global warming, but rather more about ocean conservation. He may actually have made an accurate point too -- it is highly likely that we have passed the tipping point for fisheries and coral reefs and that tipping point could have been the year 2000. Michael Crichton's book definitely played into climate change conspiracy theories, but we're trying to talk here about specific points made in climate science not about the weird political machinations of right wing (or left wing, mind you) ideologues. Actors and science fiction authors are not the experts who drive the conversation. jps (talk) 21:28, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * As for politically motivated coverage, you may be amused by Jim Inhofe having invited Crichton to testify to Congress, apparently supposing he was a scientist. You did realise Crichton was writing fiction? Similarly, Danson seems to be an actor, author, and producer, not a scientist. Don't know what you mean by "early global warming advocates", people like Spencer and Legates who claim, on religious grounds, that global warming is good for you? . . dave souza, talk 20:01, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want to trace the early history of work on the relationship between  carbon  dioxide in the  air and the temperature of the  earth's surface, it might make more sense to start with this paper  that Svante  Arrhenius published in 1896, rather than with anything Ted Danson may have said. Cardamon (talk) 00:47, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Since it came up, does anyone have a good source for exactly what Ted Danson said, when he said it, and it what context? I tried to find this for the article Ted Danson.  I found many later arguments over whether he was right or wrong, but no specifics on the statement itself.  It still has a "citation needed" tag after many months. --Amble (talk) 01:51, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe the statement was made in a speech when he founded the organization that is now Oceana (non-profit group), but I cannot find a transcript of it either. jps (talk) 17:45, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

jps: You should have checked for precedents before starting a pointless discussion in the wrong forum. We've already got an administrator's ruling about this: "Use what the sources say. If the majority of sources call a subject a 'skeptic' then they are a skeptic. If the sources calls them a 'climate change denier' then call them that. We use what the majority of sources use. Single partisan sources that are used in opposition to the majority of sources will be considered POV pushing and sanctioned under WP:ARBCC. Mass changes of any material without discussion is disruptive." If you wish to overturn the administrator's ruling: Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:16, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * take it to the administrator's noticeboard
 * inform people who participated last time
 * come up with something new.
 * Most of the most reliable sources use some form of "denial" as the marker. jps (talk) 05:08, 18 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Administrators don't make "rulings". If their opinions had special weight, then Dave and I (and I don't know who else in this thread...I'm too lazy to check. Boris, if he ever bothered to ask for the tools back) would count double. What you're referring to is a specific summary of consensus on a specific set of sources. Made a year ago. The simple reality is that the pendulum has shifted - a few years ago calling people denialists could earn people blocks. Now, it's no big deal - because the sources are there now. There's room for debate about whether we call someone a denialist in Wikipedia's voice or we say who called them that. It's fair to argue about that. But by the same token, it's fair to debate whether we can call people "skeptics", or whether we should say that they describe themselves that way. Usage has changed, and we need to follow that shift in usage. Guettarda (talk) 17:44, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The word "ruling" may have implications that I did not intend; I will use the simpler word "statement" from now on. However, it's not a specific summary of consensus on a specific set of sources, it's stated in a general way, and nobody has pointed to something that supersedes it. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:04, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The best sources do not use the term "global warming skeptic" or "climate change skeptic" without qualification. We have included many articles which do not fall under the category of "skeptic" and thus we need to rename the categories. jps (talk) 23:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Suggest the term "Heretic" would be more appropriate than "Skeptic". :>) Blueboar (talk) 20:55, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

CfD discussion
Please feel free to comment here. jps (talk) 18:56, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Annabelle (doll)
Article about a haunted doll appears to be only supported by credulous sources, so Articles for deletion/Annabelle (doll). - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:12, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Some new additions to the article include lots of supernatural claims cited to fringe sources, like The Demonologist (..."reveals the grave religious process behind supernatural events and how it can happen to you!...") - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:52, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It is particularly worrying to me that the sources (mostly in "entertainment news"/"slow news day"/"junk food news") are being held up as paragons of reliability. Are sources like this actually reliable factual sources per our guidelines and community consensus?  There is a contingent of editors at the AfD who are vigorous in their defense of such sources.  It is hard for me to imagine that their views represent the community consensus on that subject.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 13:19, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It appears that the stand alone article may be kept - with significant WP:UNDUE problems intact. The only sources available report that this doll was possessed by a dead girl and demons, moved around on its own, attacked people, left threatening notes, etc. (I find it interesting that none of the sources put these reports in the context of an urban legend or pop culture phenomenon, rather they seem to go out of their way to sensationalize the subject.) We know the claim that a doll has supernatural powers is a fringe view, and policy instructs us to clarify how the fringe view differs from the mainstream view. But with no sources explicitly critical of these claims, WP:OR via WP:IAR has been suggested as a solution. I don't think that's a good option to remedying the WP:UNDUE problem, however I strongly advise against the pointy edit warring that's currently happening at the article now. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:36, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * OMG what a mess. This article needs substantial trimming, phrasing adjustments and better sourcing. It contains a host of REDFLAG content without sources of the quality to support such extraordinary "facts". - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:26, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Waldorf Education
Hi! I stumbled upon the Waldorf Education article a few weeks ago, and began making edits recently to bring it to a NPOV. Previously, the article read almost entirely as a promotion for Waldorf-style education, which has been remarked on many WP:RS as a fringe theory of education. I've run into a dispute with User:Hgilbert, and I'm looking for more third party input. Basically, the dispute revolves around the article's possible lack of NPOV, ADVERT like statements, and above all, excessive detail and puffery, in my opinion. User:Hgilbert, before I showed up, was the only substantial contributor to the article, and has been cited previously as having a COI in relation to the page, as he's a Waldorf educator and has written extensively about Waldorf in academic settings and on other websites. Please just drop by the article's talk page, or check out the article itself, and lend a hand!-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 16:29, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * First of all, Waldorf education is not a fringe theory, but one of the most prominent and successful forms of education worldwide today. Second of all, this user is a likely Sockpuppet for the banned User:Pete K, who has repeatedly returned under various guises (see Sockpuppet_investigations/Pete_K/Archive and linked investigations). HGilbert (talk) 17:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * First of all, whether or not Waldorf education can be called a fringe theory on wikipedia is based on WP:RS. Not on your own opinion or original research. I provided sources.


 * Secondly, if you go through my edit history, you'll see there were several other times I was called a single purpose account, but for OTHER PURPOSES. Focusing on one group of articles or even one article for an extended period of time in one's history does not alone make one a single purpose account. Even while editing this page, and focusing here, I have edited numerous other pages. The IPs I edit from tend to be in the 146.203.126.0 to 100 range or used to be in the 128.135.0.0-250 range. This is because I graduated from the University of Chicago last year and started attending the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Pete K has many websites that he used to use to attack Hgilbert, and others, in a pretty shitty way. The IP addresses of those pages, and the biographical information on those sites about Pete K, show that he and I are clearly completely unrelated people. You'll also see, if you go to those websites, that I have never posted there, there is no one resembling me on any other forums about Waldorf education or Anthroposophy.


 * That is because I only found out that Waldorf education EXISTED by finding this ridiculously bad POV article here on Wiki. I am a neutral third party, who only wants this article to adhere to wiki standards. If you go through my edit history on Waldorf education, you'll see that I made many edits, that could be construed as from BOTH sides. See here and here and here. To me, this seems like a tactic to prevent any editor who wants to fix up the POV issues on Waldorf Education from doing so. This article desperately needs third party viewpoints, and I am a completely and totally uninvolved party, that Hgilbert disagrees with, and so is accusing of being a sockpuppet of another account he used to disagree with. -- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 18:04, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * We are well aware that there is an issue with Hgilbert's connection to the anthroposophical movement and related ideas. I have found that he can be amenable to working if you present good sources... this is how we've been able to identify and eliminate much of the nonsense about biodynamic agriculture and anthroposophical medicine, for example. One of the biggest problems with anthroposophy articles is the massive amount of material that is included sourced to violations of WP:FRIND. What we would like to do is remove much of the soapboxing that seems to be endemic. You need to make specific requests if you would like some help. Just saying, "come to the page" may not be good enough. jps (talk) 20:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I certainly hope that "come to the page" will draw some investigation/assistance from editors here. The article needs substantial improvement and such improvement is meeting a great deal of resistance. I currently have limited use of my computer and have gotten very busy IRL. I hope some editors here can "come to the page". - - MrBill3 (talk) 06:07, 24 March 2015 (UTC)


 * In my experience there is such a weight of invested interest in that article that any changes to neutral will get eroded away fairly promptly. Alexbrn talk 17:19, 24 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Man, this is so sad. I find myself being worn down as well, I no longer have any interest in fixing the page up, because anything I do is immediately nitpicked by a small army of (what I suspect to be) meat/sockpuppets/newly created accounts, as well as three hardline anthroposophists who will never openly admit their COI in selecting certain sources and removing others..."I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive....”-Good ol' Carl. I think Waldorf/anthroposophy may be the pseudoscience most defended by abusers of the system I've seen in a long time. I mean, if enough interested and stubborn editors involve themselves in the talk page, it might turn out better. But it appears as though certain COI editors have nearly unlimited time on their hands.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 17:58, 24 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Although it is necessary to elaborate, the article as it stands isn't the WORST it could be, and somewhat far from it. The NPOV problems are subtle, incredibly subtle. A law student actually published a review about this article in particular, and about the NPOV problems brought about by some of Hgilbert's edits. You can find it here (pp 118-124), I thought it was really interesting, and it was one of the few things that made me become so passionate initially.-- Shibboleth ink (♔ ♕) 18:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This comment is a striking example of where the NPOV problems lie. The law review article discussed problems with COI on both sides: both critics and supporters. It's curious that only half of this is mentioned here.
 * In any case, the WE article was completely changed as a result of arbitration many years ago, so that it relies on solid reliable sources from independent authorities, i.e. academic or peer-reviewed books and journals (instead of high-quality emic sources, as it had done). The only criteria I have for further changes is adhering to RS and avoiding OR. HGilbert (talk) 01:05, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

RfC at Ayurveda
There is an RfC at Ayurveda that is relevant to this project. The question is essentially should WP present the information from sources that the modern practice of ayurveda is pseudoscience. Input from editors with experience in articles on pseudoscience and alt med would be useful. Please note the editing restrictions concerning the article and the talk page. - - MrBill3 (talk) 09:00, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Fringe eye treatments
I recently undertook a major re-write of Behavioral optometry which had problematic (primary) sourcing and editorial special pleading and which lacked mainstream context. This led me to look at the other two articles. Bates method is generally okay, but my attempt to have the lede say the method is "ineffective" (rather than merely "unsubstantiated") has been reverted on that grounds I am POV-pushing. The Art of Seeing is Aldous Huxley's book on the Bates method and our article strikes me as problematic in that it essays Huxley's belief in the system without mainstream context - again my attempt to have the lede say the method is discredited has been reverted to ave us say that the method is just "controversial". Thoughts, comments, scrutiny, etc. from fringe-savvy editors would be welcome as ever. Alexbrn talk 21:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Out-of-body experience
User who has also used a few IP addresses re-adding in a fringe source (near-death.com) that an OBE experiment by Charles Tart was genuine evidence for consciousness leaving the body. Future Kick (talk) 19:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * And some original research, too. I've written a strongly-worded note to the user. Bishonen &#124; talk 20:09, 28 March 2015 (UTC).

Carctol
is a fake cancer cure, and our article has seen some recent activity. Needs eyes. Alexbrn talk 10:17, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've checked your source and restored the quote and the 'ineffective' qualification. There seems to be some whitewashing going on in the recent history, so i've placed the article on my watchlist and i'll keep an eye out. HTH. Tjuus... Kleuske (talk) 21:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Peter Langdon Ward
"has recently discovered a relationship between global warming and volcanism rates" "After man began reducing these emissions by 1980, in an effort to reduce acid rain, the rates of increase in temperature and methane began to decrease, reaching zero by 1998." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.54.118.34 (talk)  16:24, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

World Contact Day
Notable enough for a standalone article?

The Carpenters sang about it.

jps (talk) 17:39, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Words to watch
I've seen many times where people would object to a fringe label such as pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, etc. claiming it's not NPOV or contentious(those claims often coming from someone wanting to support a fringe view). WP:LABEL helps with this by specifically stating the term pseudoscience is supported by NPOV and why. Are there other terms we should consider either adding at WP:LABEL or elsewhere to cut down on claims of the terms being contentious when used to describe fringe content? I see conspiracy theory come up pretty often which may not be as concrete as pseudoscience, but is there anything we can do to give guidance in using such terms when others are opposed to them because they call the terms contentious? Maybe pseudoscience only gets the specific treatment at WP:LABEL because it's the most concrete of the fringe definitions, but I'm just curious what people's thoughts are on terms or places to mention this. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:40, 8 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Psuedoarchaeology and all its derivative words? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 17 Adar 5775 18:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I would suggest maybe revising the phrasing to say something roughly along the lines of "terms like psuedoscience, pseudoarchaeology, pseudohistory, conspiracy theory, alternative medicine, alternative history, new religious movements, cult, and the like can be used in wikipedia to describe the subjects in wikipedia, with the prominence of usage of such terms in our articles to be, roughly, analogous to the usage of those specific terms or virtual synonyms in well regarded general reference or academic sources, or specialist reference or academic sources relating directly to the terms and their usage." Maybe, something like that anyway, although probably a hell of a lot better phrased. John Carter (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * denialism has been contentious. Especially in regards to global warming denialism which denialists claim is defamatory since it sounds like Holocaust denialism. It's an extremely weak claim, but it has hoodwinked a number of administrators and editors who think that global warming skepticism is somehow "more neutral". It's not. All scientists are skeptics. Global warming denialists pretend to be skeptics but they're either lying about it or are too ignorant to understand that the ideas they are hung up on have all been investigated thoroughly. jps (talk) 19:48, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Misconceptions as per List of common misconceptions and Lie-to-children might merit inclusion as well. I do however think that there may well be a bit of a problem regarding what might be called the overuse of these specific terms. So, while I would have no objections whatsoever to incorporation of any of them in the most directly relevant lists with adequate sourcing, there does seem to me to be a question, as Ian.thomson has expressed here regarding perhaps how much weight and prominence to give such words in articles on the individual topics described by these terms themselves. John Carter (talk) 19:57, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I disagree in part with the statement that pseudoscience is supported by NPOV because the latter fails to mention the qualifier for what is and isn't considered pseudoscience. The latter argument is supported in WP:FRINGE/PS which states, Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. In that regard, we have the following definitions: Another consideration is WP:FRINGEBLP, so it is far more complex than simply stating the term is supported by NPOV. Atsme &#9775;  Consult  02:40, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Pseudoscience: Proposals which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification. For example, since the universal scientific view is that perpetual motion is impossible, any purported perpetual motion mechanism (such as Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell) may be treated as pseudoscience. Proposals which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, such as astrology, may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
 * Questionable science: Hypotheses which have a substantial following but which critics describe as pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect; however it should not be described as unambiguously pseudoscientific while a reasonable amount of academic debate still exists on this point.
 * I agree with Atsme, for the most part. I feel that it is better to describe the situation, rather than label it.  pseudoscience is an overused term on en.wikipedia for 'things that are not mainstream'.  I'd like to see us keep the focus on the actual meaning of it as 'totally bogus played off as scientific'.  --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I definitely agree with Rocksanddirt above. I regret to say that the word pseudoscience itself is not necessarily objectionable, but the word itself doesn't actually tell me much when it is used, given the ambiguity of the definition, and might be seen as an instance of WP:JARGON on that basis. Now, other language, such as "the field has been found to lack any sort of recognized scientific basis," or "studies have shown no advantage to individuals who have followed this procedure," or, if the real quotes from true experts exist, something along the lines "Stephen Hawking has described the concept as insane," would I think all be preferable in that they are more informative, to at least some degree, and it makes it easier to set up the phrasing in such a way as to describe the real reasons why something is described as pseudoscience, which probably would convey more information to the reader. John Carter (talk) 18:33, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Neurobics
IP activity heating up about this system of mental exercises. Mangoe (talk) 11:54, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Faith healing
The article Faith healing is getting edited with an attempt to interpret NPOV as meaning editorial comments should be inserted qualifying facts from sources, when such comments are not present in the sources. It has also been suggested that criticism be walled off in a separate section to make the article, "acceptable to the respective adherents and their healers." There is a lack of depth in coverage of the deaths and convictions related to denial of medical care to children and the legal shielding in some states. The structure of the article pushes evaluation, analysis and criticism to the bottom of the article. Some input from experienced editors would be useful. Particularly someone who could explain NPOV concisely. - - MrBill3 (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

New article: Psychopuncture


No not an April fool (?) - is this viable even? Alexbrn (talk) 20:01, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you sure it isn't an april fool? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 20:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If it is it's a very elaborate and long-planned one, since it's Out There on teh Internetz. Behold the puppets: http://bestpsychopuncture.com/1puppets.php3 Alexbrn (talk) 20:18, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It's real. It received a PRD tag from WikiDan61on 28 March, user Alexandranag added sources(?), and WikiDan removed the tag yesterday. Fringeness remains, however.  --Seduisant (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If it is real, I suppose it is probably as batshit insane as other fringe med stuff, like acu, or ayu, or hom. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 20:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Not an April fool. I originally proposed it for deletion, but the original author has provided enough evidence that this is a real thing. (Not necessarily a really effective thing, but that's not really the point.) Actual citations in scholarly publications and everything. The term apparently broadly covers the application of Wu Xing (The Five Elements) to psychology, and is usually practiced by acupuncturists in association with actual acupuncture to address psychosomatic illnesses. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 20:35, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * A real thing, but where are the independent sources which discuss it? Is there anyone not connected with Hallym Calehr who has taken notice of this peculiar technique? jps (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Just when you thought they couldn't get any weirder... . Is AFD maybe the way to go here? John Carter (talk) 21:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The article lists many sources that are independent of Calehr. The technique appears to have found a real foothold in Russia. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, that could explain a lot. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * But the Russian psychopuncturists are not independent of Calehr. They appear to be recruited and trained by him as part of his Russian Psychopuncture Association. We need sources from people who aren't his acolytes. jps (talk) 13:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Given that the article now claims that psychopuncture is a form of 'treatment', it clearly falls within the scope of WP:MEDRS - I shall see what Wikiproject medicine has to say on the subject. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * IMO the article is an unsalvageable hodgepodge of WP:SYN and WP:FRINGE. See Articles for deletion/Psychopuncture. Guy (Help!) 20:05, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Morgellons
Following Joni Mitchell's hospitalization today, the New York Times reported that Mitchell "suffered from Morgellons disease", a condition whose status as a "disease" is very much in question. Suggest eyes on Morgellons in anticipation of Mitchell-based fringe frenzy. --Seduisant (talk) 15:58, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely with the above comment, but I just want to note that the Times did not in fact say she suffered from Morgellons (I would be rather horrified if they had!), but rather quoted an interview with Ms. Mitchell wherein she herself claimed to have it. Just wanted to point out that slight distinction.  Dumuzid (talk) 20:57, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

2012 phenomenon theorists
Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_3.

Please comment.

jps (talk) 13:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks like an etymological/connotational issue:, , and the only solution is to live with it. I guess nobody would think of a scientific/academic theory when the context is "2012 phenomenon". Logos (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Terence McKenna
Did you know that it has been discussed ad infinitum and the "consensus" is that Terence McKenna is a "philosopher"? I had this pointed out to me by a philosopher in the philosophy department. Easy work if you can get it?



Anyway, I recommend reverting back to WP:Right version. I think it's also pretty clear we have a WP:SPA problem.

jps (talk) 12:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Just as a note I have found the main/frequent contributor to the article (, whose diff is provided above) to be willing and able to work constructively and collaboratively on talk. Not sure what you are referring to as an SPA problem but editors who contribute to a single subject can help improve the encyclopedia. I would concur that there is no consensus, source or solid policy based argument for characterizing McKenna as a philosopher. The two discussions in the talk archives provide none. - - MrBill3 (talk) 18:19, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Pattern recognition can be a problem. WP:SPA is not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems to me to be a problem when I'm reverted by a claim of ad infinitum discussion. Anyway, the talking is proceeding, so, I'm happy. jps (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

New article, Biofrequency Chip
A new article Biofrequency Chip, clearly needs some attention as it describes the topic as if it were real medicine science with only hints that it‘s something out of alternative medicine, but the actual content and many of the sources indicate that's what it is.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 22:29, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It is WP:FRINGE, and the citations are not about biofrequency chips!

Ducking nonsense?
An essay has recently appeared, WP:COIducks which advances the case that COI-tainted editors may be identified by their behaviour alone. WP:FRINGE is invoked as a potential factor in making this identification, and so members of this NB may be interested. Note that the new essay is also currently nominated for deletion. Alexbrn (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Alexbrn fails to note that one of the worst abuses of COI was dealt with by "identifying their behaviour alone":  WifiOne.  Please read about that important case  here. Because of user anonymity there is no other way to identify COI, is there?  David Tornheim (talk) 17:36, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Exactly: doing the good work to assemble a convincing case—which is quite different from the lazy stunt of labelling editors who don't share one's (fringe) POV as "having a COI". This is a shitty essay in my view: almost a litmus test, in the support it attracts, of which editors hereabouts are worthwhile. Alexbrn (talk) 17:41, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

October Surprise conspiracy theory
The idea that Reagan struck a deal with the Iranians to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran. While there are plenty of reliable sources discussing this theory, our article could use a few extra eyes to weed out some of the questionable sources. - Location (talk) 02:00, 5 April 2015 (UTC)


 * It appears as though this may have been discussed previously here. See "Consortium News" at October Surprise conspiracy theory. - Location (talk) 20:58, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

The Men Who Stare at Goats
Can people add this and other articles edited by the same IP to their watchlists? The latest edit is adding OR to a see also entry. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:11, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Yosef Ben-Jochannan
And this, about an Afro-centrist who died recently so has received a bit of pov editing. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:13, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

The Day After Roswell
Is this book so notable it needs a dedicated article? Alexbrn (talk) 03:55, 7 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Per Notability (books), yes. The story of the book (not necessarily the book itself) is quite interesting, not that this supports notability per se. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:11, 7 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The book attracted some notable criticism, which probably belongs in the article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:16, 7 April 2015 (UTC)


 * A couple news blurbs regarding Strom Thurmond being duped into writing the forward: . -Location (talk) 15:11, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Ages in Chaos
Many apologies, another one. Latest edit POV, OR, etc. Dougweller (talk) 15:40, 7 April 2015 (UTC)